"HONEST ABE" 




ABRAHAM l.l.NCOl.N 

From a woodcut by T. Johnson after a daguerreotype owned by 

Mr. Robert T. Lincoln 



(4 



HONEST ABE" 



A STUDY IN INTEGRITY 

BASED ON THE EARLY LIFE OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

BY 

ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

AUTHOR OF "LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN " 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
1917 



.3 



COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY META ROTHSCHILD 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published September iQiy 



^: >f 



OCT -8 1917 
©GU^i78908 



IN MEMORY 

OF 

" DEAREST " 

KATHERINE ROTHSCHILD 

to whom the author 

owes not less than 

lincoln owed his 

"angel mother" 

this book is 

affectionately 

dedicated 



CONTENTS 

I. Pinching Times i 

II. Truth in Law 41 

III. Professional Ethics 79 

IV. Dollars and Cents 130 

V. Honesty in Politics 195 

Alonzo Rothschild 283 

Memoir by John Rothschild 

A List of Books Cited 307 

Notes 321 

Index 361 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Abraham Lincoln Frontispiece 

From a woodcut by T. Johnson in the Century Magazine 
for February, 1897, after a daguerreotype owned by Mr. 
Robert T. Lincoln. It is not known when or where the 
daguerreotype was taken, but it seems probable that it was 
made either at St. Louis or at Washington when Lincoln 
was in Congress, December, 1847,-March, 1849 

Alonzo Rothschild 285 

From a photograph by Marceau, Boston 



^^HONEST ABE" 



CHAPTER I 

PINCHING TIMES 

HE who seeks to understand the character and 
achievement of Abraham Lincoln must begin 
with a study of the man's honesty. At the base of 
his nature, in the tap-root and very fiber of his 
being, pulsed a fidelity to truth, whether of thought 
or of deed, peculiar to itself. So thoroughgoing was 
this characteristic that it seems to have begun in 
him where in other men it generally leaves off. Poli- 
ticians without number have yielded a work-a-day 
obedience to the rules of honor, but there is record 
of no other public leader in recent times who, among 
the vicissitudes of a trying career, has endeavored 
to balance actions and principles with such pains- 
taking nicety. To trace these efforts from Lincoln's 
early years is to pass with him, pace for pace, over 
part of the road that led to distinction. As we go 
we shall have to take account of happenings, little 
as well as big; for every man is the sum of all his 
parts, and in no other way may we hope to compre- 
hend how the esteem that began with a few rustic 
neighbors grew until it filled the heart of a nation. 

To what extent, if any, Lincoln inherited his up- 
rightness of mind from remote ancestors will prob- 



2 HONEST ABE 

ably never be known. The bare lines of the genea- 
logical chart afford no clues to the characters of the 
men and women whose names appear there. If any 
of the threads spun out of their several lives met 
and twined in the broad strand of blue that enriched 
his, there is no way of identifying the spinners. Less 
obscure, though perhaps of only passing interest, is 
what may be gleaned under this head about two 
of Lincoln's nearer relations. His father's brothers, 
Mordecai and Josiah, appear to have enjoyed gen- 
eral respect on account of their probity. "They 
were excellent men," said one who claimed to know 
them intimately, "plain, moderately educated, can- 
did in their manners and intercourse, and looked 
upon as honorable as any men I have ever heard 
of." ^ Their younger brother Thomas, however, 
cannot be so readily portrayed. He has, like his 
illustrious son, been, in turn, depreciated and ideal- 
ized to such a degree that the inquirer, who would 
reach safe conclusions in respect to him, must tread 
warily through a maze of contradictions. 

Rejecting the praise as well as the blame of hear- 
say historians, and following the testimony of those 
only who knew the man, we learn from one that he 
was "honest"; from another that he "was regarded 
as a very honest man"; and still another found him 
"always truthful — conscientious." ^ To these trib- 
utes must be added what one who was doubly con- 
nected with Thomas Lincoln had to say about 
him: — 

"I'm just tired of hearing Grandfather Lincoln 
abused," said Mrs. Dowling, the daughter of Dennis 



PINCHING TIMES 3 

Hanks and Matilda Johnson, speaking to an atten- 
tive listener, not many years ago. "Everybody runs 
him down." 

Then, going on to free her mind woman-fashion, 
she continued : — 

"Uncle Abe got his honesty, and his clear notions 
of living, and his kind heart from his father. Maybe 
the Hanks family was smarter, but some of them 
could n't hold a candle to Grandfather Lincoln 
when it came to morals. I've heard Grandfather 
Lincoln say, many a time, that he was kind and lov- 
ing, and kept his word, and always paid his way, 
and never turned a dog from his door." ^ 

These qualities, so admirable In Thomas, were not 
lacking, it should be mentioned, In that particular 
member of "the Hanks family," his cousin Nancy, 
with whom he mated.'* She is said to have brought 
to the rude Kentucky cabin, in which they began 
their married life, a sweetness of spirit and a firm- 
ness of character that nicely supplemented his 
rugged integrity. Yet here again traditions are 
more plentiful than facts, and the repute of the 
little family, In those early days, so far as it affords 
a point of departure for the study of Abraham Lin- 
coln's straightforwardness, rests, in a manner, on 
the word of one neighbor, — a man of standing, 
however, — according to whom "they were poor," 
but "they were true." ^ 

The poverty of the frontier, it has been said, is no 
poverty; but the LIncolns were poor almost to a 
proverb. Their condition appears to have been ex- 
treme, even for the primitive Kentucky settlement 



4 HONEST ABE 

at EHzabethtown where they made their first home. 
The young husband was a carpenter by trade, but 
his new neighbors, with the self-reliance of pioneers, 
managed to do for themselves most of the work 
wherewith he had hoped to support his family. Its 
needs grew with the birth of a little daughter, but 
not its resources, which he presently sought to eke 
out by farming. The hut in EHzabethtown was 
abandoned for another hut and a piece of tillable 
land that Thomas had bought, — presumably on 
credit, — about fourteen miles away, near the Big 
South Fork of Nolin Creek.^ There, in the following 
winter> was born the boy who became known to 
fame as Abraham Lincoln. He must have felt at an 
early age the tooth of the "stinted living" in those 
" pinching times," to which, during later life, he once 
sadly referred ; for his father did not prosper with the 
hoe, any more than he had with the hammer. After 
a few unfruitful years on Nolin Creek, Thomas re- 
linquished the place for a better farm, in the Knob 
Creek region, about fifteen miles distant, acquired 
like its predecessor on easy terms. Yet the fortunes 
of the family did not mend. Its luckless head "was 
always lookin'," as Cousin Dennis said, "fur the 
land o' Canaan." To his pioneer's vision the There 
ever seemed fairer than the Here. So removal fol- 
lowed removal, — now in Kentucky, then into In- 
diana, and again into Illinois, — until, to borrow 
one of Abraham's little stories, the chickens, if there 
were any, might have lain on their backs and crossed 
their legs to be tied, whenever they saw the wagon 
sheets brought out.' 



PINCHING TIMES 5 

Thomas Lincoln's futile shifts need not be set 
forth at length here,^ but certain aspects of his ina- 
bility to get on in the world have a peculiar signifi- 
cance. He responded with ready good nature to 
calls upon his time or his hospitality ; and though he 
appears to have understood many things, he never 
learned how to turn his dealings with the little 
world around him to his own account. The few 
business ventures, in which he is said to have en- 
gaged, reveal how woefully he was lacking in what 
has been called "money sense." A typical instance, 
related by his son many years after the event, may 
have suggested to the narrator that there were at 
least two members of the Lincoln family who had 
each a blind side in the direction of the almighty 
dollar. Here is the story substantially as Abraham 
related it : — • 

"Father often told me of the trick that was 
played upon him by a 'pair of sharpers.* It was the 
year before we moved from Kentucky to Indiana 
that father concluded to take a load of pork down to 
New Orleans. He had a considerable amount of his 
own, and he bargained with the relations and neigh- 
bors for their pork, so that altogether he had quite 
a load. He took the pork to the Ohio River on 
a clumsily constructed flat-boat of his own make. 
Almost as soon as he pushed out into the river a 
couple of sleek fellows bargained with him for his 
cargo, and promised to meet him in New Orleans 
where they arranged to pay him the price agreed 
upon. He eagerly accepted the offer, transferred the 
cargo to the strangers, and drifted down the river, 



6 HONEST ABE 

his head filled with visions of wealth and delight. 
He thought that he was going to accomplish what he 
had set out to do, without labor or inconvenience. 
Father waited about New Orleans for several days, 
but failed to meet his whilom friends. At last it 
dawned upon him that he had been sold, and all that 
he could do was to come back home and face the 
music." ^ 

Consoling himself after such mishaps with the 
indolent philosophy of "Luck is ag'in' me," and 
"Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," Thomas 
would return to his sporadic farming, or to what he 
liked better — his rod and his gun. For there is a 
tradition that this unthrifty fellow — honest and 
well-meaning though he was — had a distaste for 
manual labor. When work had to be done he did it, 
after a fashion, nor did he spare the boy who was 
growing up at his side; but further than that he 
apparently did not go. Indeed, it may be doubted 
whether the father ever found, along their limited 
horizon, the path which might have led either him 
or his son to business success. They certainly did not 
enter upon it. Yet if Thomas Lincoln failed to teach 
Abraham how to put money in their purse, let it be 
remembered, to his lasting credit, that he did show 
him how an empty sack might — despite a time- 
honored adage to the contrary — stand upright. 

Noteworthy as was the father's influence on the 
boy's character, that of the mother appears to have 
been of deeper consequence. Lincoln's earliest recol- 
lections of her, as he recalled in later years, pictured 
his sister and himself seated at her feet eagerly lis- 



PINCHING TIMES 7 

tening to the books that she read or the tales that 
she told. The poor lady succumbed early to the 
hardships of the Indiana backwoods; and the few 
facts that are known concerning her brief life set 
forth but a meager story. ^^ If "the world knows 
nothing of its greatest men," may this not be so, in a 
measure, because it knows nothing of their mothers? 
The deficiency, as far as Nancy Hanks is concerned, 
was supplied, for all time, in perhaps the most pithy 
yet comprehensive tribute that a distinguished son 
ever uttered to the memory of a parent. Looking 
down over his career from the last eminence, and 
tracing it all back again to the frail, sweet-faced 
woman whose life had flickered out before his won- 
dering gaze, in the cabin home of his boyhood, Lin- 
coln once said, with moist eyes: "All that I am, or 
hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." ^^ 

When she passed on, the lad, it is true, was not 
quite eleven years old; nevertheless her teachings, 
during that first plastic period, had evidently left 
their sterling impress in his nature. 

Nor did the home influence for right living stop 
there. After an interval of about a year, Thomas 
sought another mate. Leaving the little ones to 
manage the household on Little Pigeon Creek as 
best they might, he retraced his steps to Elizabeth- 
town and offered himself in marriage to Mrs. Sarah 
Bush Johnston. She is said to have refused him, in 
their younger days, for Daniel Johnston, who, by a 
coincidence, had left her a widow with as many chil- 
dren as waited for her visitor at home.^^ On this 
occasion the lady listened more favorably to his 



8 HONEST ABE 

proposal, yet she pointed out an obstacle, saying: 
"Tommy Lincoln, I have no objection to marrying 
you, but I cannot do it right off, for I owe several 
little debts which must first be paid." To which he 
replied: "Give me a list of your debts." 

They amounted to about twelve dollars — not so 
mean a sum in those days of small things as present 
standards might indicate. At any rate, within a few 
hours our suitor had paid them, and had married the 
fair debtor. The settlement of these little accounts 
was, in a way, the central incident of their short 
courtship. ^^ It puts one in mind of the good repute 
enjoyed by the Lincolns, from the beginning, in 
EHzabethtown. If the neighbor, who declared 
Thomas and his first wife to have been poor but 
true, had seen him and his second wife set out for 
home in a four-horse wagon loaded with her wealth of 
household belongings, — to say nothing of the three 
blooming Johnston children, — there might have 
been some hesitation about repeating the word 
"poor"; but in the face of those receipted bills, 
there would probably have been no desire to modify 
the word "true."!* 

Sally Bush was a worthy successor to Nancy 
Hanks. A woman of strong personality and high 
ideals, this stepmother — to use a designation that 
she ennobled — is credited by not a few writers with 
exerting the larger influence in the moulding of 
Abraham Lincoln's character. They have gone so 
far, some of them, as to assert that Lincoln himself, 
recognizing this to be so, had her in mind and not 
her predecessor, when he uttered that grateful 



PINCHING TIMES 9 

acknowledgment to his " angel mother. " ^^ This view- 
is hardly sustained by the language of the tribute, or 
by the facts; yet Abraham apparently missed no 
opportunity for expressing in deeds, as well as in 
words, what — to use his own phrases — he owed 
the "noblewoman" who had been "a good and kind 
mother" ^^ to an orphaned boy. 

Perhaps, after all, the controversy concerning the 
two women, if controversy it may be called, is fairly 
disposed of by what Mr. Lincoln told one of his 
acquaintances, Governor William Pickering, who 
some years later thus restated their conversation. 
"Once when Lincoln referred to the fact that he 
owed much to his mother, I asked, ' Which mother, 
Mr. Lincoln, your own or your stepmother?' To 
which Mr. Lincoln replied, — ' Don 't ask me that 
question, for I mean both, as it was mother all my 
life, except that desolate period between the time 
mother died and father brought mother into the 
home again. Both were as one mother. Hence I 
simply say, mother.'" ^^ 

With one or the other of these conscientious wo- 
men at his side, Abraham Lincoln reached maturity. 
Almost every good man has had a good mother. 
Here was one who had two. It is not surprising, 
therefore, that his sense of right and wrong, after a 
few minor lapses, became developed to uncommon 
acuteness at an early age, nor should it be accounted 
a miracle that from the unsightly stumpage of a 
frontier clearing, emerged this blossom which grew, 
with time, into the finest flower of nineteenth-cen- 
tury honor. 



lo HONEST ABE 

Lincoln was brought up on the breast of things. 
The rugged actualities of life in a new country, 
rather than the literature about life, entered into 
his training; and when we name those colleges to 
which the world's great lights have severally owed 
their education, this man must be credited to the 
most venerable, though perhaps least honored, 
among them all, — the academy of hard knocks. 
Let us not infer, however, that the back settlements 
in which he spent his youth were wholly beyond the 
field of letters. Attending "ABC schools by lit- 
tles," as the autobiography expresses it, and learn- 
ing betimes how to read, the lad lost no opportunity 
to borrow or acquire the few books within his reach. 
Under the stimulation of first one mother, then the 
other, every volume that he could lay hold of for 
fifty miles around was eagerly studied. What this 
shifting library comprised will doubtless never be 
fully known. It is said to have included — besides 
certain elementary school-books ^^ — the Bible, Bun- 
yan's "Pilgrim's Progress," ^Esop's "Fables," the 
"Arabian Nights," Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," 
Weems's "Life of Washington," Ramsay's "Life of 
Washington," a history of the United States, 
Weems's "Life of Marion," the "Speeches of Henry 
Clay," with which was probably incorporated a 
"Memoir" of the statesman, the "Life of Benjamin 
Franklin," Riley's "Narrative of the Loss of the 
Brig Commerce," a few of Cooper's "Leather 
Stocking Tales," and the Revised Laws of Indiana, 
with which were bound, besides other documents, 
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitu- 



PINCHING TIMES ii 

tion of the United States. ^^ Some of these works, 
if not all of them, left an ethical glow in the boy's 
heart. Thoughtfully absorbing the light that 
streamed from their pages, he caught glimpses here 
and there of a kinship that linked the everyday 
doings in his commonplace world with the ideals 
in his books. 

A mishap to one of the borrowed volumes put 
these budding ideas of rectitude to the test. While 
in Abraham's keeping, a ' ' Life of Washington ' ' -° that 
belonged to a neighbor, Josiah Crawford by name, 
was badly soaked one night during a rainstorm, 
which beat through the chinks of the Little Pigeon 
Creek cabin. Carrying the damaged book back to its 
owner, the boy acknowledged himself answerable 
for its condition; — but how was he to pay the seven- 
ty-five cents which Crawford demanded in settle- 
ment? Money was as scarce as literature at that 
time with young Lincoln, so he agreed to work out 
the claim in the farmer's corn-field. "You see," said 
Abraham, relating the incident to a friend, "I am 
tall and long-armed, and I went to work in earnest. 
At the end of the two days there was not a corn- 
blade left on a stalk in the field. I wanted to pay full 
damage for all the wetting the book got, and I made 
a clean sweep. * ' ^^ This ample submission to the laws 
of mine and thine was not, however, so graceful as it 
might have been. Our "long-armed " boy appears to 
have been still far removed from sainthood in those 
days; and, after the manner of boys, he nursed a 
grudge against Crawford for his unneighborly, 
though perhaps rightful, treatment of the accident. 



12 HONEST ABE 

Having satisfied that thrifty person's demands with 
the Scriptural "good measure, pressed down, and 
shaken together, and running over," Abraham — 
so tradition has it — lampooned the man whenever 
occasion offered, — now in humorous prose, now 
in doggerel rhymes, — until Josiah's " blue nose," as 
well as certain other unlovely features, became the 
laughing-stock of the neighborhood. Indeed, the 
gibes ran their merry course — if we may believe 
one veracious chronicler — all the way to "the 
Wabash and the Ohio." 22 

This unseemly persecution of Crawford, on the 
heels of an honorable settlement with him, nar- 
rowly saved the youthful Lincoln from occupying a 
place in the world's gallery of premature worthies 
beside the copper-plate little Washington portrayed 
by Parson Weems. Nevertheless, that myth-maker's 
model boy, who could not tell a lie, had left a deep 
impression in the mind of this real boy. To Abe's 
uncritical faculties the biography rang true in every 
detail. For its reverend author, with all his faults, 
had the literary merit of apparent sincerity; and his 
string of "curious anecdotes," as the title-page 
called them, had not yet been worn threadbare, to 
the verge of the ridiculous, by derisive repetition. 
Weems's Washington, boy and man, became Lin- 
coln's hero — a cherished ideal which he never con- 
sented to modify, even after he had outgrown the 
story of the cherry tree and that truthful little 
hatchet-swinger. 

Emulating the great Virginian, Abe carried him- 
self, now consciously, now unconsciously, as this 



PINCHING TIMES 13 

paragon of his fancy might have done, even to the 
point of leaving a hatchet, or more accurately 
speaking, an axe anecdote for later generations to 
admire. During those toilsome Indiana days, — so 
runs our tale, — the youth was engaged in clearing 
a piece of woodland some distance from the house. 
Leaving home early, he made it a practice to carry 
some luncheon and stay away until nightfall. The 
picnic element in the expedition appealed to the 
taste of his frolicsome stepsister, Matilda, whose 
frequent appeals for permission to accompany him 
met with her mother's peremptory refusals. Eluding 
maternal vigilance one morning, the girl slyly fol- 
lowed Lincoln as he strode through the forest, hum- 
ming a tune, with his axe on his shoulder. At a 
favorable moment she darted forward and, exerting 
cat-like agility, leaped squarely upon him. Grasping 
a shoulder with each hand, she braced her knee in 
the middle of his back, and brought the young woods- 
man dexterously to the ground. Lincoln, taken by 
surprise, went down like a log, carrying his assailant 
with him. As they fell the axe cut the girl's ankle, 
making a painful wound that bled freely. After an 
improvised bandage had stanched the blood, Abe, 
mindful of Mrs. Lincoln's oft-repeated orders, looked 
down at the sobbing culprit and asked : — - 

'"Tilda, what are you going to tell mother about 
getting hurt?" 

"Tell her I did It with the axe," she answered. 
"That will be the truth, won't it?" 

To which he responded : — 

"Yes, that's the truth, but it's not all the truth. 



14 HONEST ABE 

Tell the whole truth, 'Tilda, and trust your good 
mother for the rest." ^^ 

Whether 'Tilda did tell "the whole truth," and 
whether Sally Bush gathered her or Abraham or 
both of them to her heart, after the manner of 
Augustine Washington in the Reverend Mr. Weems's 
tale, is not definitely known. Nevertheless, when 
the Plutarch that is to be runs his parallel between 
these two greatest of Americans, the legendary 
hatchet and the historic axe may become symbolic 
of how closely both these heroes did actually hew 
to the line, in their early fondness for the verities. 

But if further youthful similarities shall be sought 
by that hypothetical biographer, he will not linger 
over the next episode in this chronicle of Lincoln's 
moral growth. Abe had passed his nineteenth 
birthday when "the great man" of the Little Pigeon 
Creek neighborhood, old James Gentry, picked him 
out for a signal mark of confidence. That gentle- 
man's son, Allen, was to make a trading voyage in a 
Mississippi flat-boat laden with goods, and Lincoln 
was hired to share the adventure. They planned to 
do business along the river all the way, if necessary, 
to the Gulf. Drifting down the Ohio and thence on 
the broad waters of the Mississippi as far as New 
Orleans, the young men made a prosperous, though 
not entirely uneventful journey. Only one incident 
of the expedition concerns us here. At certain land- 
ings they were paid for their merchandise — as they 
discovered too late — in counterfeit money. Gen- 
try, lamenting over the matter, feared his father's 
anger; whereupon Lincoln consoled him with the 



PINCHING TIMES 15 

suggestion that their employer would not care how 
much bad money they took in, if they brought the 
correct amount of good money home. "Never 
mind, Allen," he continued ; "it will accidentally slip 
out of our fingers before we get to New Orleans, and 
then old Jim can't quarrel at us." ^^ This prophecy 
did, in fact, come true. The counterfeits, we are 
told, "all went off like hot cakes"; but to what ex- 
tent the prophet helped to bring about so sweeping 
a fulfillment is nowhere recorded. When he and his 
associates, however, on their return, rendered an 
account of their stewardship in currency that was 
not hopelessly discredited, old Mr. Gentry is said 
to have pronounced on Lincoln what corresponded 
with the Scriptural commendation, — "Well done, 
good and faithful servant." 

In this approval the candid historian cannot con- 
cur, yet he hesitates to condemn. The demoralized 
condition of our currency throughout the Missis- 
sippi Valley for over half a century, the bewildering 
variety of counterfeit bills, to say nothing of wildcat 
notes, in circulation, and the scarcity of good money, 
left people small choice but to accept at varying dis- 
counts — unless too obviously spurious — what they 
were offered, and pass it along again with as little 
loss as possible. ^^ One aspect of the trouble was 
later humorously set forth by Lincoln himself, in 
his story of the steamboat captain who, running 
short of fuel on the river, steered to a wood-pile 
alongshore. 

"Is that your wood?" he inquired of a man near 
by. 



i6 HONEST ABE 

"Yes," was the answer. 

"Do you want to sell it?" 

"Certainly." 

"Will you accept wildcat currency?" 

"Certainly." 

"How will you take it?" 

"Cord for cord." 26 

The passing of depreciated or fraudulent currency, 
in the ordinary course of business, was evidently not 
regarded, during those days of loose financiering, 
with the severity of more recent times. ^^ Indeed, 
after Lincoln had become a lawyer, though the cli- 
ents that offered themselves were accepted or re- 
jected with scrupulous discrimination, he on one 
occasion employed his wit and ability to secure the 
acquittal of a man charged, under suspicious circum- 
stances, with passing counterfeit money. "There 
was a pretty clear case against the accused," said 
Adlai E. Stevenson, who attended the trial, " but 
when the chief witness for the people took the stand, 
he stated that his name was J. Parker Green, and 
Lincoln reverted to this the moment he rose to cross- 
examine: — Why J. Parker Green? — What did the 
J. stand for? — John? — Well, why did n't the wit- 
ness call himself John P. Green? — That was his 
name, was n't it? — Well, what was the reason he 
did not wish to be known by his right name? — Did 
J. Parker Green have anything to conceal; and if 
not, why did J. Parker Green part his name in that 
way? — and so on. Of course the whole examination 
was farcical," Mr. Stevenson continued, "but there 
was something irresistibly funny in the varying 



PINCHING TIMES 17 

tones and inflections of Mr. Lincoln's voice as he 
rang the changes upon the man's name; and at the 
recess the very boys in the street took it up as a 
slogan, and shouted, * J. Parker Green!' all over the 
town. Moreover, there was something in Lincoln's 
way of intoning his questions which made me sus- 
picious of the witness, and to this day I have never 
been able to rid my mind of the absurd impression 
that there was something not quite right about J. 
Parker Green. It was all nonsense, of course; but 
the jury must have been affected as I was, for Green 
was discredited, and the defendant went free." ^^ 
Perhaps, too, some of the twelve good men and true, 
like the highly respected counsel for the defense, 
could have severally recalled times when the exigen- 
cies of trade had wafted into their hands worthless 
bank-bills that, somehow, did not remain there. 

Be that as it may, much water, in the language of 
the old byword, was to flow down the Mississippi 
River before this clever attorney evolved from the 
gawky young bow-hand on Gentry's flat-boat. An- 
other trading voyage to New Orleans in the spring 
of 1 83 1, shortly after he had begun life on his o\vn 
account, appears to have been as successful as the 
first one. The crew comprised Lincoln, his step- 
brother John D. Johnston, and his cousin John 
Hanks, who accompanied them, however, but part 
way, leaving the responsibility of the undertaking 
largely on Abraham's shoulders. Their employer, 
Denton Off"utt, a breezy speculator, — free-handed, 
optimistic, and given to superlatives, — conceived 
a warm admiration for Abe. The young fellow cer- 



i8 HONEST ABE 

tainly conducted himself well. His manly qualities, 
his muscular powers, his unfailing good humor, his 
resourcefulness on certain trying occasions, his fidel- 
ity to the trust reposed in him, above all, his integ- 
rity, made so strong an impression on OfTutt that 
at the termination of the voyage he established a 
general store at New Salem, ^^ and placed Lincoln in 
charge of it with the assertion that this model clerk 
had not his equal in the United States. 

Offutt's extravagant praise was, it is perhaps 
needless to say, not wholly merited. A keener mer- 
chant might have hesitated to entrust the manage- 
ment of his business, and of the neighboring mill 
that was presently merged with the enterprise, to 
a young man of Lincoln's peculiar make-up. Abe 
had, it is true, learned something of storekeeping dur- 
ing the old Gentryville days, in the grocery of his 
friend William Jones; and a small stock of goods 
purchased there, when the Lincoln family moved 
from Indiana to Illinois, had been profitably peddled, 
on the way. Moreover, those trading trips to New 
Orleans had doubtless contributed somewhat to his 
commercial training; but no amount of experience 
could make a successful business man of one so lack- 
ing, as was Tom Lincoln's son, in aptitude for hiving 
the nimble sixpence. How not to do so appears, in a 
sense, to have concerned him more. Yet the scrupu- 
lous care with which he shut OfTutt's till against the 
sixpences that did not belong there would, had it 
been combined with mercantile ability, probably in 
the end have made the young clerk's fortune. His 
honesty became a by-word. 



PINCHING TIMES 19 

Two typical instances of uprightness in small 
things especially impressed themselves on the mem- 
ory of the neighborhood. It is said that once, having 
sold a woman a bill of goods, he found after her de- 
parture that she had paid six and a quarter cents 
more than the purchases amounted to. When the 
store was closed at night, so the story goes, he 
walked several miles into the country to give his 
customer the fourpenny piece which balanced her 
over-payment. Here again Lincoln's punctilious 
honesty recalls that of Washington. It is related 
that a ferryman on the General's estate, in making 
change for a moidore, took out one and a half pence 
too much. Discovering the over-charge when the 
accounts for the week were made up, Washington 
wrapped three halfpence in a piece of paper, and 
had them delivered to the traveler on his return.^" 

The other anecdote concerning Lincoln, that be- 
longs in this group, tells how one night, just before 
closing time, he hastily weighed, as he thought, half 
a pound of tea for a belated customer. Looking at 
the scales on the following morning, he discovered 
that a weight of four ounces, instead of eight, had 
been used. To wrap up another quarter of a pound 
of tea, close the store again, and deliver his parcel 
at the end of a long walk before breakfast, was the 
only method of repairing the error that presented 
itself to this primitive conscience. 

The young clerk's ethical creed during those New 
Salem days seems simple enough. It has been pre- 
served by a friend, who thus restates what he gath- 
ered, under this head, in the course of conversation: 



20 HONEST ABE 

"Lincoln said he did not believe in total deprav- 
ity, and, although it was not popular to believe it, 
it was easier to do right than wrong; that the first 
thought was: what was right? and the second: what 
was wrong? Therefore it was easier to do right than 
wrong, and easier to take care of, as it would take 
care of itself. It took an effort to do wrong, and a 
still greater effort to take care of it. But do right 
and it would take care of itself. Then you had 
nothing to do but to go ahead and do right and 
nothing to trouble you."^^ 

Out of this philosophy developed — to borrow a 
cynical phrase — the acute attacks of chronic in- 
tegrity that attracted particular attention to Lin- 
coln, even in the midst of an honest, plain-dealing 
community. The rude people around him, for the 
most part, led upright lives, and they expected 
others to do likewise; yet his efforts to treat every 
man with fairness were so pronounced as to evoke 
frequent comment among them. Their talk crystal- 
lieed, at last, in the sobriquet, "Honest Abe." This 
name, having been generally adopted throughout 
the New Salem vicinage, fitted Lincoln so nicely 
that it clung to him, with slight variations, in one 
form or another, until the end of his career. 

Meanwhile Offutt did not prosper. He appears 
to have had too many irons in the fire, and one of 
them, as we know, was under the care of a man who 
had no particular talent for keeping irons, or any- 
thing else, at a money-making glow. Neither the 
honesty nor the popularity of this clerk — for the 
young fellow had gained the good-will of their cus- 



PINCHING TIMES 21 

tomers — sufficed to save the store from the general 
ruin in which the owner's several ventures became 
involved. > Failure overtook the new business before 
the end of its first year. As the place is sold out, 
Offutt disappears from historic view; while Lincoln 
steps nearer to the lime-light for a brief but bloodless 
essay at soldiering in the Black Hawk War. Return- 
ing to New Salem upon the conclusion of the cam- 
paign, he made an unsuccessful canvass, on a Na- 
tional Republican platform, for election to the State 
Legislature. Then "without means and out of busi- 
ness," as he himself expressed it, but "anxious to 
remain with his friends," Lincoln looked about him 
for something to do. Stalwart of frame, with well- 
knit muscles, he naturally came to the thought of 
again earning a living by manual labor. The black- 
smith's trade, which several of his forbears had 
creditably followed, was, for a time, seriously con- 
sidered. It had, in fact, almost been decided on, 
when two of those new-found friends, the Herndon 
brothers, familiarly known as "Row" and "Jim," 
offered their general store for sale. James sold his 
interest to William F. Berry, the son of a neighbor- 
ing Presbyterian minister, and Rowan soon after 
disposed of his share to Lincoln, receiving in lieu 
of money "Honest Abe's" promise to pay. When 
"Row "was asked how he came to make such lib- 
eral terms with a penniless man whom he had known 
for so short a time, he answered: "I believed he 
was thoroughly honest, and that impression was 
so strong in me I accepted his note in payment 
of the whole. He had no money, but I would 



22 HONEST ABE 

have advanced him still more had he asked for 
it." '' 

Herndon was not the only New Salemite who was 
willing to transfer his business, after this fashion, 
for a promissory note. Soon after the transaction, a 
neighboring storekeeper, Reuben Radford by name, 
incurred the displeasure of a local gang, "the Clary's 
Grove boys," to such an extent that they made a 
riotous night of it in his place. On the following 
morning, standing discouraged amid the debris of 
the establishment, Radford sold it to the first comer, 
William G. Greene, a youth who had been a sort of 
junior clerk in the Offutt store. As the purchaser 
could not pay in cash the four hundred dollars 
agreed upon, he gave his note. Then, growing 
nervous over the transaction, he turned for comfort 
to his former associate. Lincoln said: "Cheer up, 
Billy. It's a good thing. We'll take an inventory." 

They found that the flotsam and jetsam which 
had survived the storm, amounted in value to $1200. 
Whereupon Berry and Lincoln offered Greene a sub- 
stantial profit on his bargain. This the young man 
eagerly accepted, with the stipulation that the firm 
should assume his indebtedness to Radford. There 
was a little more shuffling of notes, and the goods 
passed into the hands of Berry and Lincoln. ^^ They 
shortly afterwards, in presumably the same man- 
ner, absorbed a small business owned by James 
Rutledge. Combining these three stocks, — all ac- 
quired by a few strokes of the pen, — Lincoln and 
his partner now had what the junior member later 
ironically referred to as *'the store" of New Salem. 



PINCHING TIMES 23 

Despite its virtual monopoly along certain lines, 
the new firm was ill-adapted to succeed. Berry soon 
developed habits of idleness and intemperance that 
would have been fatal to any business ; ^^ while Lin- 
coln, though ambitious and sober to an exceptional 
degree, was hardly more effective. His keen inter- 
est in books, study, newspapers, politics, funny 
stories, horse-races, wrestling-matches, feats of 
strength, — anything, in short, but buying and sell- 
ing, — left him far from alert to what is commonly 
called the main chance. When one remembers these 
pursuits, moreover, to have been the preoccupations 
of a man who combined rigid integrity with a kindly 
nature, it is not surprising to learn, as Cousin Dennis 
relates, that "he purty nigh always got the wust of a 
trade." ^^ The rest is soon told. Berry and Lincoln 
did not thrive. Giving up the struggle after several 
ineffectual shifts, they sold out, early in 1834, to 
Alexander and William Trent. The purchasers had 
no money, but they willingly gave notes, which the 
sellers as willingly accepted. Before these obliga- 
tions fell due, however, the Trent brothers had dis- 
appeared, their few remaining goods had been seized 
by creditors, and the business had come to an inglo- 
rious close. 

Berry's death, soon after, left the surviving mem- 
ber of the firm to face, alone, the consequences of 
their ill-starred venture. Yet he could not bring 
himself to join in the censure which was heaped upon 
the young man's memory. With characteristic con- 
sideration for his partner's father, the Reverend 
John M. Berry, whom he held in affectionate regard, 



24 HONEST ABE 

Lincoln declared that William's dissipation was a 
result rather than a cause of their misfortunes; and 
took on his own shoulders the burden of liabilities 
bound up in those unpaid notes to Herndon, Rad- 
ford, Greene, and Rutledge. 

How serious the whole affair was may be gathered 
from this account of it, given by the hapless debtor 
to a friend ^® of later days: "That debt was the 
greatest obstacle I have ever met in life. I had no 
way of speculating, and could not earn money except 
by labor, and to earn by labor eleven hundred dol- 
lars, besides my living, seemed the work of a life- 
time. There was, however, but one way. I went to 
the creditors and told them that if they would let 
me alone, I would give them all I could earn, over 
my living, as fast as I could earn it." ^^ 

During the next few months no surplus, it is per- 
haps needless to add, was available for this purpose. 
In fact, the situation reduced itself to a struggle for 
bread. Lincoln's earnings from the office of local 
postmaster, to which he had been appointed before 
the above "winked out," were of course meager in 
the extreme; but he contrived to pick up a living by 
doing odd jobs about the neighborhood. Helping 
his friends — now Hill, now Ellis — behind their 
counters, working in the field as a farm laborer, 
splitting rails, lending a hand at the mill, — briefly, 
making himself useful on all sides, in his big, good- 
natured way, he just "kept," to quote the auto- 
biography, "soul and body together." ^^ 

Throughout this trying period, however, Lincoln 
did not lose sight of his self-respect, or of the respect 



PINCHING TIMES 25 

due to him from others. He began to manifest that 
sensitive chastity of honor which recoils from doubt 
as from a blow. So, when a patron of the post-office, 
upon payment of certain arrears demanded an 
acknowledgment, "A. Lincoln, P.M.," responded: 
"I am somewhat surprised at your request. I will, 
however, comply with it. The law requires news- 
paper postage to be paid in advance, and now that I 
have waited a full year, you choose to wound my 
feelings by insinuating that unless you get a receipt 
I will probably make you pay it again." ^^ 

The reputation for honesty, which Lincoln so jeal- 
ously guarded, had meanwhile opened to him an- 
other channel for occasional employment. This 
opportunity came through John Calhoun, the sur- 
veyor of Sangamon County, who, overburdened 
with business, was looking about for an assistant of 
intelligence and unquestioned integrity. The latter 
qualification appears to have been especially im- 
portant at the time, owing to a mania for specula- 
tion in land that had possessed the pecple of the 
region to such a degree as almost to put a premium 
on jobbery. A man beyond the reach of corruption 
was, therefore, what Calhoun sought when he offered 
to make Abraham Lincoln one of his deputies. The 
honor must have been not less flattering to the 
young National Republican, because it came, as had 
the postmastership, from a Democratic source, and 
with the assurance that his acceptance carried with 
it no obligation of party service, nor restraint upon 
his freedom of political action. To Lincoln's declara- 
tion that he knew nothing whatever about survey- 



26 HONEST ABE 

ing, Calhoun responded with an offer to aid him. 
Books and material having been procured, six weeks 
of earnest study ensued. For assistance in learning 
the theory of the subject, Lincoln turned to his 
friend, Mentor Graham, the local schoolmaster; for 
guidance in the practical application of the rules, he 
depended on the surveyor himself. When the period 
of preparation had reached its close, the new-fledged 
deputy is said to have made his pathetic little 
speech: "Calhoun, I am entirely unable to repay 
you for your generosity, at present. All that I have 
you see on me, except a quarter of a dollar, in my 
pocket." ^° 

Such extreme poverty left Lincoln, of course, 
unable to pay cash for the saddle-horse that his new 
duties obliged him to buy. He agreed to take care of 
the bill by installments; he did so, but ran behind 
when only ten dollars remained unpaid. Where- 
upon his creditor, a horse-dealer named Thomas 
Watkins, who is described as "a high-strung man," 
lost his temper and sued for what was still due. 
Lincoln did not deny the debt. He hastily raised 
the required sum and settled the suit. 

A still more unpleasant experience followed, for 
the young surveyor was destined to drain his cup of 
mortification to its dregs. One of the Berry-Lincoln 
notes had passed into the hands of a certain Van 
Bergen, who forthwith brought suit and obtained 
judgment. Levying on the horse, saddle, and sur- 
veying instruments, he offered them for sale in satis- 
faction of his claim. But Lincoln's loyal friends 
were not disposed to stand idly by while he was de- 



PINCHING TIMES 27 

prived of the means of earning a livelihood. They 
bought the effects that had been seized, restored 
them to their former owner, and took the place of 
the impatient Van Bergen among his creditors.''^ The 
loans, so handsomely made, were in time repaid by 
Lincoln, principal and interest, as were all the obli- 
gations left in the train of his unfortunate business 
ventures. Disdaining to take advantage of a re- 
cently enacted law for the relief of insolvent debtors, 
he set himself resolutely to the task of seeing to it 
that no man should lose a penny by reason of any 
note which contained his signature. Yet the pros- 
pect might have appalled a stouter heart. At times, 
when the seeming hopelessness of the undertaking 
was borne in upon him, he referred to what was still 
to be paid, with whimsical humor, as "the national 
debt." How long the process of liquidation did, in 
fact, take is not precisely known. Lincoln's occa- 
sional payments on account of these claims would 
doubtless have made a braver showing had the only 
other demands upon him been for his own simple 
wants; but, in addition to such outlays, the frequent 
aid extended to his parents, and the requirements, 
after his marriage, of a growing family, all had 
to come out of earnings that never, at their best, 
were munificent. Nevertheless, through good times 
and bad, the load of indebtedness became steadily 
lighter, until, after seventeen years or more of self- 
denial, the last note, with its heavy accumulations 
of interest, was paid.^^ 

A less scrupulous man than Abraham Lincoln 
might have appreciably shortened this debt-bound 



28 HONEST ABE 

period from the very beginning. As deputy surveyor 
under John Calhoun, and later, under that officer's 
successor, Thomas M. Neale, he doubtless had op- 
portunities enough for employing his knowledge of 
what was going on, together with his still unimpaired 
credit, in profitable land speculations. But he could 
not bring himself to mingle the pursuit of private 
gain with public duties; and he scorned to use, on 
his own account, information derived from official 
sources." The same conscientious spirit so mani- 
festly entered into the doing of the work itself that 
he soon gained the confidence of those who employed 
him. They believed in the young surveyor's accur- 
acy, as well as in his fairness, to such an extent that 
disputes concerning boundaries or corners were fre- 
quently submitted to him for arbitration; and, what 
is of greater moment, his findings, we are told, were 
invariably accepted by the conflicting parties as 
final. A quarrel of this nature, about a corner, took 
place in the northern part of the county. "After a 
good deal of disputing," relates one of the owners, 
"we agreed to send for Lincoln, and to abide by 
his decision. He came with compass, flagstaff, and 
chain. He stopped with me three or four days and 
surveyed the whole section. When in the neighbor- 
hood of the disputed comer by actual survey, he 
called for his stafT and, driving it in the ground at a 
certain spot said, 'Gentlemen, here is the corner.' 
We dug down into the ground at the point indicated 
and lo ! there we found about six or eight inches of 
the original stake sharpened at the end, and beneath 
which was the usual piece of charcoal placed there 



PINCHING TIMES 29 

by Rector, the surveyor who laid the ground off for 
the Government many years before." So well had 
the work been done that in this instance, as in the 
others, differences were at an end, and all concerned 
"went away completely satisfied." ^* 

There is another aspect of Lincoln's early life 
that should not be overlooked. He was apparently 
never too busy for the contests of strength and skill 
from which came some of his first sweet triumphs in 
leadership. That these were won, for the most part, 
with ease must have made defeat, when it did on rare 
occasions occur, peculiarly hard to bear; yet he 
carried himself , according to all accounts, — whether 
victor or vanquished, — as a man of honor should. 
In fact, save for a single untoward act which must 
be charged to the hobbledehoy exuberance of his 
youthful Indiana days,^^ Lincoln treated whatever 
happened at these sports with the same extreme can- 
dor and nicety of good faith that marked his business 
dealings. Perhaps the most notable instance is that 
of a certain wrestling-match which took place during 
the Black Hawk War. At the risk of telling a twice- 
told tale, the story is repeated here, — told anew 
rather than repeated, for the later researches of an 
Illinois historian have contributed not a few addi- 
tional details. ^^ They reveal Lincoln in the full 
flower of sportsmanlike honesty. 

Having been elected Captain of the Volunteers 
from Sangamon County, he was ever ready to up- 
hold the credit of his company in the rough pas- 
times whereby the soldiers sought to relieve the te- 
dium of that peculiar campaign. Proud of their 



30 HONEST ABE 

leader's exploits, especially as a wrestler, they 
boasted that no man in the army could throw him ; 
and he, at the same time, owed much of his ascend- 
ancy over their undisciplined natures to the uni- 
form success with which he downed all comers. But 
Antaeus himself met his match at last. 

One evening on the march, our phalanx from 
Sangamon happened upon a choice piece of camp- 
ing-ground at about the time it was reached by a 
company from St. Clair County. In the altercations 
which ensued a disgraceful scuffle seemed imminent, 
when Lincoln proposed to William Moore, the op- 
posing commander, that they might settle their dis- 
pute after the good old-fashioned method of single 
combat — captain against captain. This suggestion 
met with a modified approval. As the officer from 
St. Clair had no skill in wrestling, it was agreed that 
each company should be represented by its stoutest 
champion. Accordingly, Lincoln soon stood within 
a circle of excited men, facing a redoubtable athlete 
from southern Illinois, in the person of private 
Lorenzo Dow Thompson. Both combatants had 
won the confidence of their respective friends, who 
hastened to back their faith with bets, eagerly 
offered and as eagerly accepted. Nor were the 
gathering crowds of soldiers from other companies 
slow to gratify their sporting tastes. ' ' Up went pow- 
der-horns, guns, watches, coats, horses, pay-rolls, 
and reputations until," — so runs the chronicle, — 
''there remained not one solitary article of property 
in possession or expectancy thereof, which had not 
been put into the pot on that match." The referee, 



PINCHING TIMES 31 

Captain Moore's brother Jonathan, announced, as 
he tossed up a coin for choice of "holts," that two 
falls in three would decide the match ; and the men 
grappled. 

It did not take Lincoln long to discover that his 
record was in danger. Calling to his friends, with 
characteristic frankness, he managed to say: "This 
is the most powerful man I ever had hold of. 
He will throw me and you will lose your all, unless 
I act on the defensive." 

Yet Thompson was too quick for him. All of 
Lincoln's extraordinary strength did not avail 
against the St. Clair man's skill, and in a few mo- 
ments the pride of New Salem measured his six feet 
four inches on the ground — fairly thrown. Their 
second round did not differ widely from the first. 
After attempting his favorite devices in vain, the 
tall captain again went to earth, this time, however, 
pulling his antagonist down on top of him. 

"Dog fall!" shouted Lincoln's supporters, seizing 
on a pretext for dispute. 

"Fair fall!" defiantly retorted the others. 

A general fight — and a serious one at that — 
seemed inevitable, when Lincoln springing to his 
feet averted, for the second time in this affair, a 
scene of bloodshed. 

"Boys," he cried, "give up your bets; if he has 
not thrown me fairly, he could." ^' 

This frank admission put an end to all hopes of fur- 
ther resistance. The " boys ' ' reluctantly obeyed , and 
Captain Moore's followers took possession of their 
captured bivouac, laden with the spoils of victory. ^^ 



32 HONEST ABE 

But were they the only victors? Marshaling the 
several elements which went to make up this little 
drama, recalling what defeat meant to the Sanga- 
mon chief, and how easy it might have been for him 
to hide his discomfiture under cover of the melee 
which he had prevented, thoughtful readers will 
perhaps agree that the true hero of the episode — 
all things considered — did not rest that night in the 
camp of the St. Clair rangers.^^ 

Virile men, rude and cultured alike, admire a 
winner; but how their hearts go out to him who can 
lose or win with equal grace ! So it was in Lincoln's 
case. During what might be called his New Salem 
period, he became the central figure of those occa- 
sional little gatherings at which the settlers sought 
to amuse themselves. They made him preside over 
horse-races, wrestling-matches, athletic games, and 
what not. Indeed, even cock-fights seemed incom- 
plete if he was missing from the judge's corner. 
Expert knowledge of these pastimes, applied with 
tact, good nature, and ready wit, went far to make 
his decisions acceptable, even had they not been 
pronounced by a muscular giant, who could always 
be relied on to enforce compliance. More note- 
worthy, however, than all other circumstances was 
the abiding faith of this entire community in the 
young man's squareness. Said one old resident, 
reviving precious memories: "In the spring or sum- 
mer of 1832, I had a horse-race with George War- 
burton. I got Lincoln, who was at the race, to be 
a judge of the race, much against his will, and 
after hard persuasion. Lincoln decided correctly, and 



PINCHING TIMES 33 

the other judge said, 'Lincoln is the fairest man I 
ever had to deal with. If Lincoln is in this county 
when I die, I want him to be my administrator, for 
he is the only man I ever met with that was wholly 
and unselfishly honest.' " ^° 

As might have been expected, this talent for hold- 
ing the scales with a steady hand brought more se- 
rious duties. When arrangements were made, from 
time to time, in approved frontier fashion, for the 
fist-fights whereby these backwoodsmen sought to 
adjust their irreconcilable differences, Lincoln, if 
not called upon to second one of the principals, was 
usually named by both as referee. Such functions 
are, In the nature of things, difficult to perform ; yet 
he conducted himself, according to all accounts, with 
spirit, and with painstaking fidelity to the rules of 
fair play. It is said, moreover, that he officiated 
on these occasions reluctantly — in fact, only after 
failing to bring about settlements of the quarrels by 
peaceable means. For it was as arbitrator between 
man and man that his ripening intuitions of equity 

— tempered by kindly sympathies with both sides 

— had their largest scope. With such precision — 
to quote from an ancient judicial oath — "as the 
herring's backbone doth lie in the midst of the fish," 
did he draw the line between conflicting interests. 
Even those who were inclined to demur at his deci- 
sions usually came to see that a lean compromise 
was better than a fat lawsuit. So, in one way and 
another, to not a few people along the Sangamon, 
Abraham Lincoln became, after a fashion, the court 
of last resort. ^^ It would seem as if, at this early 



34 HONEST ABE 

date, he himself might have been found worthy of 
the eulogy pronounced by him, some years later, on 
a departed friend: "In his intercourse with his fel- 
low-men, he possessed that rare uprightness of char- 
acter, which was evidenced by his having no dis- 
putes or bickerings of his own, while he was ever the 
chosen arbiter to settle those of his neighbors." ^^ 

So far, indeed, did Lincoln carry his peacemaking 
activities that the local justice, with an eye to dimin- 
ishing fees, complained of interference. If this func- 
tionary, as seems likely, was Squire Bowling Green, 
who had befriended our amateur judge in many 
ways, the situation must have been peculiarly un- 
pleasant. But, be that as it may, Lincoln did not 
adjourn court. Taking the rebuke amiably, he ex- 
plained how hard it was for him to see his neigh- 
bors spend money in unnecessary litigation and — 
what was more important still — how desirous he 
felt of saving them from perhaps lifelong enmities 
which might be prevented. That reply was far- 
reaching. It opened a window, so to say, in the 
speaker's heart, and threw a flood of light forward 
upon many things which he did, and many more 
which he refrained from doing, throughout the fruit- 
ful years that were to come. 

What motives first directed Lincoln's attention 
to the legal profession as a career are not definitely 
known. Whether the bar took his fancy on account 
of that ideal justice to which lawyers theoretically, 
at least, dedicate themselves, or whether he was 
moved by more commonplace incentives, such as a 
taste for study, the desire to gain a livelihood by 



PINCHING TIMES 35 

means of an honorable calling, aspirations to become 
a controlling factor in other men's affairs, and the 
like, can only be surmised. Perhaps each of these 
considerations carried due weight. They certainly 
all had time enough to make their presence felt. 
For, as far back as the youthful days at Gentryville, 
we find Abraham, in his insatiable craving for the 
printed page, poring over a copy of the Indiana 
Statutes. ^^ This volume was supplemented pres- 
ently by such books as he could borrow from Jus- 
tice John Pitcher of Rockport, whose kindly inter- 
est in the lad grew out of his admiration for a little 
composition on the American government, which 
one of the young writer's friends had submitted to 
judicial criticism. "The world could n't beat it," 
was Pitcher's comment, and thenceforth Lincoln 
had the run of his office. ^^ At about the same time 
came opportunities — or rather Abe made oppor- 
tunities — for seeing the law administered. When- 
ever sessions of the circuit court for the adjoining 
county were held in Boonville, he would trudge over 
the road — a matter of fifteen miles — to attend. 
What took place there doubtless repaid him. 
Closely following every word and act in the rustic 
drama of justice, as it unfolded itself before his 
fascinated gaze, he seemed identified, so to say, 
with the proceedings. They took such hold upon 
his mind that he rehearsed them at home, reenact- 
ing the court-room scenes and holding mock-trials in 
which a certain gawky country boy defended imag- 
inary prisoners against unjust charges, with uni- 
form success. If he might only become a lawyer ! But 



36 HONEST ABE 

such a notion was out of the question. His parents, 
as he explained to Judge Pitcher, were so poor that 
they could not spare him long enough for study. 
And there the matter rested while the years passed 
on. In fact, it was not until after Lincoln had left 
home and had become a business man at New Salem 
that his youthful ambition, dormant though never 
wholly forgotten during the long intervening period, 
began to revive. While casting about for something 
to do, on his return from the Black Hawk War, 
he again thought of taking up this calling; but the 
idea was promptly dismissed because, to quote his 
own opinion, he "could not succeed at that with- 
out a better education." Nevertheless, before many 
months had elapsed, a chance occurrence during the 
ill-starred Berry partnership quickened into life, 
beyond any previous experience, Lincoln's desire to 
study law. How this came about he himself, chat- 
ting once with an acquaintance, in a reminiscent 
mood, thus related: — 

"One day a man who was migrating to the West 
drove up in front of my store with a wagon which 
contained his family and household plunder. He 
asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he 
had no room in his wagon, and which he said con- 
tained nothing of special value. I did not want it, 
but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, 
half a dollar for it. Without further examination, I 
put it away in the store, and forgot all about it. 
Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon 
the barrel, and emptying it upon the floor to see 
what it contained, I found at the bottom of the rub- 



PINCHING TIMES 37 

bish a complete edition of Blackstone's Commen- 
taries. I began to read those famous works, and I 
had plenty of time ; for, during the long summer days, 
when the farmers were busy with their crops, my 
customers were few and far between. The more I 
read" — this he said with a sweeping gesture and 
a high pitch of enthusiasm in his voice — "the more 
intensely interested I became. Never in my whole 
life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read 
until I devoured them." ^^ 

Lincoln's re-awakened appetite for legal lore was 
destined soon to be gratified. After the store had, 
like that barrel of rubbish, passed into the limbo of 
discarded things, he turned from his surveying dur- 
ing the summer of 1834 long enough to make a sec- 
ond, and this time successful, canvass for election 
to the State Legislature. While traveling over his 
district, the young politician saw much of a fellow 
candidate on the Whig ticket. Major John T. Stu- 
art, with whom he had served two years before 
through the Black Hawk War. Stuart, an attorney 
in reputable practice at Springfield, conceived a 
high regard for Lincoln's character and ability. So 
that when Abraham confided to him his inclination 
for the study of law, he met not only with instant 
encouragement, but with equally prompt offers of 
assistance. Here, indeed, was the stuff out of which 
lawyers at their best are made. Rigid honesty, a 
judicial temperament, candor, and ambition, as well 
as the less salient qualities, — common sense, perse- 
verance, knowledge of human nature, and keen sym- 
pathy with human affairs, — of all these the aspir- 



38 HONEST ABE 

ant had given abundant evidence. Nor could he be 
considered lacking in what, according to Lord Eldon, 
constituted the prime requisite for a beginner who 
sought distinction at the bar, — he was "not worth 
a shilHng." 

This last attribute, however, hardly commended 
itself as an advantage to Lincoln's troubled mind. 
Poverty alone would probably not have stayed his 
steps, but poverty staggering under a burden la- 
belled "the national debt," — there was a prospect 
that gave him pause. What did he owe to his cred- 
itors, what to himself? Pondering over these ques- 
tions, he carried them with him on a surveying expe- 
dition. All day long the pros and cons of the matter 
jostled one another in his perplexed brain, without 
result. Yet the time for a decision had come. On 
his way home, he swung a pair of tired long legs 
across an old rail fence, and sat down resolved to 
stay there until some conclusion should be reached. 
Lincoln's destiny truly trembled in the balance; but 
a controlling thought, decisive enough to make one 
side outweigh the other, still failed to present itself. 
In this dilemma he bethought himself of a way 
out, — a way as freely utilized at the time, along 
our western frontier, as it has been among the chil- 
dren of men from the beginning of recorded days — 
the appeal to chance. Resting his Jacob's-staff erect 
on the ground, he determined to be guided by the 
direction in which it might fall. If forward, he too 
would go forward into the new career that beckoned 
him so alluringly; if backward, he would remain a 
surveyor. The staff fell forward. ^^ 



PINCHING TIMES 39 

Lincoln now began to study, if we may adopt his 
own phrase, "in good earnest." AvaiHng himself of 
Major Stuart's offer, he borrowed the necessary 
textbooks, in their order, from that gentleman's 
little library at Springfield. This required an occa- 
sional journey of twenty miles or more, each way, 
which our eager student appears to have traveled, 
for the most part, on foot." Days so spent, how- 
ever, were not wholly lost. As he strode across 
country with the precious volumes, Abraham made 
frequent pauses for the reading of successive para- 
graphs, which he recited aloud as he went. 

Nor were these studies pursued with less zeal at 
home, though, in truth, there seemed but few waking 
hours left for them. Between sessions of the Legis- 
lature, which customarily made heavy drafts upon 
its members' time, Lincoln, facing the problem of 
how to live, "still mixed in the surveying" — so 
runs his homely expression — "to pay board and 
clothing bills." Moreover, the postmastership with 
its occasional duties, as well as sundry bread-and- 
butter jobs of a less exalted character, all crowded 
their demands upon his attention. Yet some scraps 
of opportunity remained. Employing these dili- 
gently, by day and by night, he worked his way 
through Stuart's collection. ^^ To such good pur- 
pose, in fact, did he study the Major's books that, 
before the list was exhausted, though "not lawyer 
enough to hurt" him, Lincoln had acquired skill 
enough to draw up bills of sale, contracts, deeds, 
mortgages, and the like, for his admiring neighbors. 
He even went so far as to represent them before the 



40 HONEST ABE 

local justice, in sundry suits whereby his reputation 
was much enhanced, but not his income, for he made 
no charges whatever on accounts of these activities. 
This seemingly Quixotic practice of working with- 
out pay, at a time when poverty pressed sharply, 
was quite in keeping with the young man's kindly 
nature, and his biographer is tempted to make the 
obvious comment. But here again, the hand of fact 
rudely intervenes. Brushing away the gossamer 
web of romance, it points to "an act concerning 
attorneys and counselors at law" in the statutes of 
Illinois that expressly prohibited unlicensed persons 
from formally practicing at the bar or from receiv- 
ing fees for legal services. ^^ After awhile, however, 
this disability, as far as it concerned the New Salem 
amateur, was, by the customary steps, removed. 
Before his second year of preparation had elapsed, 
— in the spring of 1836, — the necessary certificate 
of "good moral character" had been entered on the 
records of the Sangamon County Circuit Court. In 
the following autumn a license was issued, and later 
Abraham Lincoln's name was duly inscribed on the 
roll of attorneys. ^° So "Honest Abe," at the age of 
twenty-eight, became a full-fledged practitioner in 
that notable company of scholars that have fur- 
nished mankind with some of its noblest and, at the 
same time, with some of its most pernicious im- 
pulses. On which side this newcomer would exercise 
his talents, none doubted who had observed him 
in any of the makeshift occupations whereby he 
sustained himself while toiling up the circuitous 
path that led to the portals of the Supreme Court. 



CHAPTER II 

TRUTH IN LAW 

EARLY one spring morning long ago, — to be 
precise, on the 15th day of April, 1837, — a soli- 
tary horseman might have been seen riding along 
the wagon road that ran from New Salem to Spring- 
field. He was obviously not one of G. P. R.James's 
jaunty heroes, nor yet a new-world variation on 
the melancholy Don, but romance and allegory 
alike can furnish forth few figures more striking 
than that which skirted the Illinois prairies on this 
particular forenoon. The traveler, sad -eyed and 
gaunt, was our friend Lincoln. His mount, a pony 
borrowed from Bowling Green, barely stepped high 
enough to keep the rider's lank extremities from 
touching the ground. Nor did the picture that he 
presented gain in grace, as one's eye rested on the 
man's ill-fitting garments. Yet they were the best 
he had, for the bulging saddle-bags contained — 
as we now know — not clothing, but a few articles 
of underwear, packed in with that well-thumbed set 
of Blackstone's Commentaries, several volumes of 
statute law, and two other books. Add to this in- 
ventory a small amount of money in pocket, — 
"about seven dollars," according to one friend's 
estimate, — and the whole sum of Lincoln's own 
portable assets at the moment is told. To complete 
the balance-sheet, his liabilities, or, more accurately 



42 HONEST ABE 

speaking, the evidences thereof, might be traced, 
line for line, in that pensive countenance. The 
shadow of "the national debt," still brooding over 
all, did in fact overlay his prospective earnings as 
well as his actual means and leave him worse than 
penniless. It was in the hope of mending these 
broken fortunes that he now turned his back on the 
cherished associations of New Salem and rode with 
his scanty belongings to Springfield. 

The city had held out welcoming hands. Its 
leading citizens felt grateful to Lincoln for effective 
aid rendered to them during the recent session of the 
General Assembly, in which they had secured a vote 
whereby the seat of government was transferred 
from Vandalia to Springfield; and his faculty, 
withal, for engaging the affections of men had al- 
ready gained him several stanch friends in the new 
capital. 

One of these admirers, William Butler, relates how 
after the victory at Vandalia, as the Sangamon dele- 
gation were returning home, Lincoln had, in a mo- 
ment of depression, spoken to him of his gloomy 
prospects. Without money, resources, or employ- 
ment, he did not know, as he said, "where to earn 
even a week's board." ^ The listener's ready sym- 
pathy had inspired him to suggest that Lincoln 
would prosper in the practice of his profession at 
Springfield; and before they parted company, But- 
ler had fortified the proposal with a tender of hospi- 
tality at his own table, until the promised success 
should be attained. In response to this generous 
offer, as well as to other invitations hardly less 



TRUTH IN LAW 43 

cordial, the member from New Salem, a few weeks 
thereafter, came to make his home in the bustling 
little town, just quickening with a sense of its 
recently acquired dignity. 

Having hitched his pony to a rack in the public 
square, Lincoln, with the saddle-bags over his arm, 
entered the general store of Joshua F. Speed. After 
an exchange of greetings, — for the two men knew 
each other, — the newcomer said: "I just want to 
put my saddle-pockets down here till I put up my 
beast at Bill Butler's, then I want to see you." 

Returning in a short time, he continued: "Well, 
Speed, I've been to Gorman's and got a single bed- 
stead ; now you figure out what it will cost for a tick, 
blankets, and the rest." 

After a brief interval with slate and pencil, the 
required furnishings were found to reach, so the 
storekeeper announced, a total of seventeen dollars. 

Lincoln's countenance fell, as he exclaimed: "I 
had no ideait would cost half of that ! It is probably 
cheap enough," he went on, "but I want to say that, 
cheap as it is, I have not the money to pay. But if 
you will credit me until Christmas, and my experi- 
ment here as a lawyer is a success, I will pay you 
then. If I fail in that I will probably never be able 
to pay you at all." 

There was a note of dejection in the speaker's 
voice and an air of gloom in his manner that deeply 
affected the man behind the counter. Recalling the 
scene, toward the latter end of his life, Mr. Speed 
declared, "As I looked up at him I thought then, 
and think now, that I never saw a sadder face." 



44 HONEST ABE 

On the impulse of the moment, he said to his 
prospective customer: — 

* ' You seem to be so much pained at contracting 
so small a debt, I think I can suggest a plan by 
which you can avoid the debt and at the same time 
attain your end. I have a very large room, and a 
very large double bed in it, which you are perfectly 
welcome to share with me if you choose." 

"Where is your room?" asked Lincoln. 

"Upstairs," answered Speed, pointing to the 
winding steps which led from the shop to the story 
above. 

Without another word his questioner took up the 
saddle-bags, mounted the stairs, and coming down 
again in a trice, announced with a happy, smiling 
face: "Well, Speed, I'm moved." ^ 

Thus dependent on the bounty of two friends, — 
on the one for food, on the other for a bed, — Lin- 
coln began his life in Springfield. 

The anxious uncertainty which followed was of 
brief duration. Before a fortnight had elapsed, Major 
Stuart invited his old comrade-in-arms to become 
his partner. This offer, it is perhaps needless to 
say, was eagerly accepted; and the modest office 
above the county court-room, that had been occu- 
pied by the senior member of the firm, became the 
headquarters of Stuart and Lincoln. 

After they were well under way occurred a little 
incident which nicely exemplified the junior part- 
ner's elemental probity, in all its quaintness. He 
had ceased to be postmaster at New Salem, upon 
the discontinuance of that office about a year before 



TRUTH IN LAW 45 

his departure from the place. But his accounts with 
the Government still remained unsettled, and he 
had probably forgotten about them, when an agent 
of the Post-Office Department arrived in Spring- 
field, one day, with a draft for the unpaid balance. 
How much this amounted to is not definitely known. 
It has been variously reported at figures ranging all 
the way from "seventeen dollars and sixty cents" 
to "over one hundred and fifty dollars." Nor do the 
official records at Washington throw any light on the 
matter, for the books covering this period have been 
destroyed. The claim, whether large or small, how- 
ever, doubtless called for a greater sum than Lincoln 
had seemingly brought with him to the city. His 
profound poverty and distress at that time might 
well lead one who knew these circumstances to 
wonder how the required funds could possibly be 
forthcoming. So the affair impressed his friend. Dr. 
A. G. Henry, who happened to be present when the 
collector came. " I did not believe he had the money 
on hand to meet the draft," said the doctor, relating 
what took place; "and I was about to call him aside 
and loan him the money, when he asked the agent to 
be seated a moment while he went over to his trunk 
at his boarding-house, and returned with an old blue 
sock with a quantity of silver and copper coin tied 
up in it. Untying the sock, he poured the contents 
on the table and proceeded to count the coin, which 
consisted of such silver and copper pieces as the 
countr}^ people were then in the habit of using in 
paying postage. On counting it up there was found 
the exact amount, to a cent, of the draft, and in the 



46 HONEST ABE 

identical coin which had been received. As the 
agent departed, Lincoln remarked, in a matter-of- 
fact tone, that he never used any money but his 
own. ^ 

This excellent rule was carried to an extreme 
which became, at times, almost childish. It seemed 
especially so in Lincoln's dealings with the three 
friends, — Kentuckians all, — Stuart, Logan, and 
Herndon, who succeeded one another as his part- 
ners.* Yet, if one may judge by what has been told 
concerning them, they entered readily enough into 
the spirit of his primitive honesty. Whenever he 
received a fee, an immediate division followed. If 
his associate happened to be present, that gentle- 
man's part was handed over at once. But if a pay- 
ment took place in the absence of the other from 
their office, or while Lincoln was on circuit, he 
wrapped his partner's share in a piece of paper 
marked, **Doe v. Roe — Stuart's half," or "Logan's 
half," or "Herndon's half," as the case might be; 
and at the first opportunity thereafter the identical 
money, as originally divided, was delivered to its 
rightful owner. 

In the case of one uncommonly large fee, how- 
ever, even this method apparently failed to satisfy 
his eagerness for prompt settlements. When he 
collected his bill of forty-eight hundred dollars, on 
a judgment against the Illinois Central Railroad 
Company, Lincoln telegraphed to Herndon that he 
wished him to remain at their office until the return 
train reached Springfield. It was night when he 
arrived, and found his partner awaiting him. Count- 



TRUTH IN LAW 47 

ing out Herndon's portion of the receipts, with a 
characteristic little jest, he had the gratification of 
placing the money where it belonged before they 
slept. 

To infer from all this that Lincoln had any aver- 
sion for the keeping of accounts, or that there were 
no fee-books in which these transactions were re- 
corded, is wide of the facts. He did keep books and 
properly, too.^ It was in the handling of payments 
that he differed from many honorable men around 
him. He had simply set up a financial creed of his 
own, as it were, according to which the money of 
another was sacred from being used by him, even 
temporarily, — yes, sacred from any act which 
might cause it to lose, for a moment, its distinctive 
character as the property of that other. 

A lawyer conscientious to such a degree toward 
his partners would hardly be less so in the treatment 
of his clients. And they, for their part, were quick to 
appreciate the fact. One old chronicler records with 
warm approval how Lincoln, at the very outset, 
gained the confidence of the business men.^ As 
traffic in the Mississippi Valley was generally based 
on long-time credit, merchants often found it neces- 
sary to commit the collection of their overdue notes 
to local attorneys. Some of these gentlemen were 
so dilatory in making returns that their clients, not 
infrequently, had as much difficulty getting the 
money from them as from their customers. Lincoln 
set a different pace. As soon as such payments 
reached him they were, in every instance, turned 
over, without delay, to their rightful owners who, 



48 HONEST ABE 

by the way, lost no opportunity of proclaiming their 
satisfaction.'' 

But it was in the handling of more important mat- 
ters that Lincoln evinced how scrupulous could be 
an attorney's attention to the true interests of those 
who sought legal aid. His ofhce became, as should 
every good lawyer's, a court of conciliation ; and when 
people came to him with their troubles, he usually 
tried, in the beginning, to bring about amicable ad- 
justments. These endeavors went beyond a merely 
perfunctory observance of the time-honored dictum 
that it is a lawyer's duty to prevent not to pro- 
mote litigation.^ Addressing himself, In the notes 
for a lecture, to beginners at the bar, he wrote, after 
perhaps fifteen years of legal experience: "Discour- 
age litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compro- 
mise whenever you can. Point out to them how the 
nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, ex- 
penses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the 
lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good 
man. There will still be business enough." ^ 

How earnestly Lincoln labored to reck his own 
rede, judges, attorneys, and other officers of the law 
agreed In attesting. They declared, according to 
one who canvassed their views, that "more disputes 
were settled" by his advice "out of the courts than 
in them"; and, what Is perhaps of greater impor- 
tance, It was added that " as a rule, these settlements 
left the litigants friends." ^° Quarrels, ranging over 
the whole field of human differences, from an alter- 
cation about a line fence to the unhappy prelimi- 
naries of a divorce suit, were smoothed out — if 



TRUTH IN LAW 49 

one may credit the current anecdotes — under his 
soothing touch." 

But were the mediations of this peacemaker satis- 
factory in every instance? Did the contestants who 
had been brought to lay their claims before him uni- 
formly submit to his decisions with good grace? 
As though to answer these questions one of his most 
brilliant contemporaries at the bar, Leonard Swett, 
once said : — 

"There is something remarkable about these 
Lincoln settlements and arbitrations. The parties 
always submit. They seem to think they have to 
submit, which is very little short of the power he 
exercises over a jury, before which these arbitrated 
disputes would otherwise come. He is so positive 
and final with them as to make his judgment equiva- 
lent to a settlement in court. In all my observations 
of these cases, only one man objected seriously and 
threatened to take his case into court. It happened 
he was one of Lincoln's clients; but when the man 
objected to Lincoln's arbitration, and said, *I will 
take the case into court,' Lincoln gave him one of 
his deep-searching looks, and said, 'Very well, Jim, 
I will take the case against you for nothing.' But 
that was unnecessary, for the penetrating look had 
settled Jim and his case." ^^ 

On other occasions, even when there were no arbi- 
trations, Lincoln could not wholly divest himself of 
the judicial spirit. He required those who sought 
his aid to come — as to the judgment-seat — with 
clean hands. A client, favored at the outset by some 
improper advantage, could hope for his services only 



50 HONEST ABE 

after the balance had been redeemed by some ade- 
quate concession. Perhaps the best case in point is 
that of a widow who retained Lincoln and Herndon 
for the purpose of looking into certain alleged tax 
liens on a valuable piece of land to which she held 
title. While making a search of the records the at- 
torneys came upon a description in one of the deeds 
that appeared to require verification. Lincoln went 
to the place with the necessary instruments and sur- 
veyed the ground himself. He found a material dis- 
crepancy. It was evident that Charles Matheney, 
a former grantor, selling the tract at a certain price 
per acre, had, by an error in the description, con- 
veyed more land than had been paid for. These 
facts were laid before the widow, with a carefully 
made calculation showing how much, in the opinion 
of her attorneys, was due to Matheney's estate by 
reason of this erroneous conveyance. Their sugges- 
tion, however, that she make this restitution met 
with strenuous objection. Only after they had de- 
clined to continue as her representatives, unless she 
did so, was the required sum reluctantly placed in 
the firm's hands. The senior member himself divided 
it into a number of smaller sums, which he distrib- 
uted, in due form, among the Matheney heirs. ^^ 

All refractory litigants were of course not amen- 
able to reason. At times when persuasion or threats 
failed, strategy came into play. One client who in- 
sisted on bringing an unseemly action was circum- 
vented by Lincoln in an amusing manner. Here is 
the story as it was told by Gibson W. Harris, a clerk 
at the time in that now famous law-office : — 



TRUTH IN LAW 51 

"A crack-brained attorney who lived in Spring- 
field, supported mainly, as I understood, by the 
other lawyers of the place, became indebted, in the 
sum of two dollars and fifty cents, to a wealthy citi- 
zen of the county, a recent comer. The creditor 
failing, after repeated efforts, to collect the amount 
due him, came to Mr. Lincoln and asked him to 
bring suit. Mr. Lincoln explained the man's condi- 
tion and circumstances, and advised his client to let 
the matter rest; but the creditor's temper was up, 
and he insisted on having suit brought. Again Mr. 
Lincoln urged him to let the matter drop, adding, 
' You can make nothing out of him, and it will cost 
you a good deal more than the debt to bring suit.' 
The creditor was still determined to have his way, 
and threatened to seek some other attorney who 
would be more willing to take charge of the matter 
than Mr. Lincoln appeared to be. Mr. Lincoln then 
said, 'Well, if you are determined that suit shall be 
brought, I will bring it; but my charge will be ten 
dollars.' The money was paid him, and peremptory 
orders were given that the suit be brought that day. 
After the client's departure, Mr. Lincoln went out of 
the office, returning in about an hour with an amused 
look on his face. I asked what pleased him, and he 
replied, *I brought suit against Blank, and then 
hunted him up, told him what I had done, handed 
him half of the ten dollars, and we went over to the 
squire's office. He confessed judgment and paid the 
bill.' Mr. Lincoln added that he did n't see any other 
way to make things satisfactory for his client as 
well as the rest of the parties."^^ 



52 HONEST ABE 

This aptitude for disposing of quarrels so as to 
satisfy all concerned became generally recognized 
at the bar. Lincoln's fellow attorneys, conceding the 
disinterested skill with which he harmonized the 
discordant elements of a matter in controversy, at 
times cooperated with him by persuading their 
clients to accept his good offices. A few of these 
colleagues even went further. When consulted con- 
cerning certain cases in which Lincoln had been 
retained on the other side, they emulated his self- 
denial, and before accepting any fees advised that 
the settlement of these affairs be left wholly in his 
hands. 

A typical instance was related, several years ago, 
by Henry Rice, a prominent resident of New York. 
During his younger days, while in business at Jack- 
sonville, Illinois, he was requested by some Cincin- 
nati merchants to recommend a reputable lawyer, 
who might look after their interests in the matter of 
a Decatur house that had made what they regarded 
as a fraudulent failure. Mr. Rice promptly sug- 
gested Abraham Lincoln, and meeting a committee 
of the creditors by appointment in Springfield, he 
guided them to that attorney's office. The ensuing 
interview was brief. Hardly had the spokesman en- 
tered upon the purpose of their visit, when Lincoln, 
raising his long arm high in the air, interrupted him 
with the words : — 

"Stop! Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that I can- 
not take your claims. Just before you entered I 
received a message engaging me to act for the Deca- 
tur concern." 



TRUTH IN LAW 53 

When asked whom the creditors had better re- 
tain, he suggested one of his most active poHtical 
opponents — that able lawyer and party leader, 
John A. McClernand. To him the committee went. 
He heard them attentively, and then said : — 

"If that man has planned to go through bank- 
ruptcy without paying you any part of his debts, he 
has chosen the poorest lawyer in Illinois to do the 
job. I advise you to return to Mr. Lincoln, and 
state your whole case as frankly as you have stated 
it to me. He is just the man to settle this for you. 
Go back and put the whole matter into his hands." 

They did so. Mr. Lincoln, after hearing their 
statement, assured them that no injustice would be 
done. More than that, he agreed to confer with his 
client and arrange an equitable settlement. In an 
uncommonly short time the creditors, to their joy, 
received seventy- five cents on the dollar; the heavy 
expense, as well as the delays usually involved in 
such failures, were averted, and the debtor was 
enabled to resume business, with a name free from 
the stain of bankruptcy. ^^ 

These compromises between opposing interests 
constituted — it is perhaps unnecessary to say — 
only a part of Lincoln's legal activities. Accepting 
as a matter of course many cases that could not be 
arbitrated or settled offhand, he conducted them, 
with varying fortunes, through their several stages 
in the courts. But now and then came proposals for 
litigation which, according to his code, admitted 
of neither suit nor compromise. They belonged to 
that class of causes once wittily characterized by 



5:4 HONEST ABE 

Erskine, in the famous opinion, — "This action will 
not lie, unless the witnesses do." Such matters re- 
ceived short shrift at Lincoln's hands. When a pro- 
spective client was in the wrong he bluntly told him 
so. Nor did he hesitate to treat old patrons and 
friends, painful as this must at times have been, with 
the same embarrassing frankness. "You have no 
case; better settle," was heard in his office, over and 
over again. Stripping a discreditable story of its 
sophistries, he pointed out the sharp practice or 
worse in which those who concerned themselves 
with the affair would inevitably become involved, 
refused the proffered retainer, and urged the liti- 
gant to withdraw from an untenable position.^* 
This was Lincoln's course toward one of his early 
neighbors, Henry McHenry, when that person de- 
sired him to bring an action of doubtful propriety. 
Declining to touch the case on the ground that his 
client was not strictly in the right, our attorney 
said: "You can give the other party a great deal of 
trouble and perhaps beat him, but you had better 
let the suit alone." ^^ 

So, too, Lincoln was careful — as he himself ex- 
pressed it — not to "stir up litigation," ^^ or to do 
anything that might encourage the vexatious and 
costly suits which often arise over the administra- 
tion of estates. 

"Who was your guardian? " he asked a young man 
after weighing his inconsistent complaint that a 
part of the property bequeathed to him had been 
wrongfully withheld. 

"Enoch Kingsbury," was the answer. 



TRUTH IN LAW 55 

" I know Mr. Kingsbury," said Lincoln, " and he 
is not the man to have cheated you out of a cent; 
I can't take the case, and I advise you to drop the 
subject." ^^ 

In the same conscientious spirit more important 
opportunities for employment, holding forth pros- 
pects of generous fees, were turned away from Lin- 
coln's door. His associates at the bar have recorded 
a few instances. One of these is related by Judge 
Samuel C. Parks. He recalls that in a matter en- 
titled "Harris and Jones versus Buckles," the plain- 
tiffs, having employed him and Ward Hill Lamon 
as their attorneys, desired them to secure Lincoln's 
services also. His reply was characteristic: "Tell 
Harris it's no use to waste money on me in that 
case; he'll get beat." 20 

Among the retainers so declined, most notable, 
perhaps, was that of Governor Joel A. Matteson, 
who, after his retirement from oflfice, stood accused 
of having defrauded the State of Illinois by reissuing 
redeemed canal scrip and applying the proceeds to 
his own use. The alleged thefts amounted, in the 
end, with interest, to about a quarter of a million 
dollars. Matteson's fortune, as well as his good re- 
pute, and perhaps his very liberty, were at stake. 
He sought to gather around him a formidable array 
of counsel. Having engaged the eminent lawyers 
Benjamin S. Edwards and Major John T. Stuart for 
his defense, he tried likewise to retain Abraham 
Lincoln and another of that gentleman's former 
partners. Judge Stephen T. Logan. Both these 
last-mentioned attorneys, however, after carefully 



56 HONEST ABE 

considering the facts submitted to them, reached 
the conclusion that the distinguished defendant was 
guilty. They conceded his right to such protection 
as one reputable advocate might properly afford 
him, but neither of them was willing to join a power- 
ful combination of legal experts that should have for 
its object the culprit's escape from punishment. So, 
without conferring on the subject, indeed without 
each other's knowledge, they respectively declined 
to be concerned in the matter. Their course, it 
should be added, was justified before many months 
had elapsed by Matteson's virtual confession and 
by a heavy judgment rendered against him in the 
Circuit Court. ^^ 

But Lincoln's refusals to engage his services in 
actions of which he did not approve went still fur- 
ther. A cause to enlist his interest had to be intrin- 
sically right as well as technically so. He ran no 
subtlety shop. What has been termed "law hon- 
esty" fell far short, now and then, in his opinion, of 
being genuine honesty. Indeed, it may be doubted 
whether any leading practitioner of the Illinois bar 
felt more keenly than he, at times, that "strictest 
law is oft the highest wrong." 

How far, on such occasions, the man in him got 
the better of the lawyer was illustrated by the clos- 
ing words of an inter\aew overheard one morning in 
his office. Mr. Lincoln, seated at the baize-covered 
table near the center of the room, had been listening 
attentively, for some time, to a person who addressed 
him earnestly and in a low tone of voice. Suddenly 
the attorney interrupted the speaker with these 
words that rang out through the place: — 



TRUTH IN LAW 57 

"Yes, we can doubtless gain your case for you. 
We can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads. 
We can distress a widowed mother and her six father- 
less children, and thereby get for you six hundred 
dollars to which you seem to have a legal claim ; but 
which rightfully belongs, it appears to me, as much 
to the woman and her children as it does to you. 
You must remember that some things legally right 
are not morally right. We shall not take your case, 
but will give you a little advice for which we will 
charge you nothing. You seem to be a sprightly, 
energetic man; we would advise you to try your 
hand at making six hundred dollars in some other 
way." ^^ 

On another occasion, as a student in the office 
recalls, Lincoln sat gazing at the ceiling while a 
client unfolded the shabby details of a proposed 
suit. When the narrative was finished, the listener 
swung around in his chair and exclaimed : — 

"Well, you have a pretty good case in technical 
law, but a pretty bad one in equity and justice. 
You'll have to get some other fellow to win this case 
for you. I could n't do it. All the time while stand- 
ing talking to that jury, I'd be thinking, 'Lincoln, 
you're a liar'; and I believe I should forget myself 
and say it out loud."^^ 

This last avowal discloses a striking justification 
— if justification is needed — of "Honest Abe's" 
course in rejecting clients whom he believed to be in 
the wrong. Whatever claims they may, on general 
principles, have had to his services were probably not 
pressed after such an acknowledgment. Even our 



58 HONEST ABE 

legal casuists, piling high the reasons why it is an 
attorney's duty to appear on either side of a cause, 
right or wrong, — and some of the arguments are 
convincing enough, — would doubtless hesitate to 
enforce their rule in the case of a lawyer who thus 
frankly admits that, when his pleadings happen to 
be at variance with his conscience, he finds himself 
unable to control his powers. The greater those 
powers, the greater would seem the danger to the 
side that had engaged them, if they should balk. 
For Pegasus unwillingly in the traces might well be 
expected to make more trouble than a whole team 
of refractory plough-horses. And Lincoln, keenly 
alive to his peculiar limitations, realized that unless 
he himself believed in the justice of a contention, his 
advocacy thereof — half-hearted, perhaps fatally 
ingenuous — would do the case more harm than 
good. 

In short, he was too "perversely honest," as one 
old acquaintance phrased it, to be of any use to a 
client who was not honest. The man's whole make- 
up harbored no trace of that mercenary, free-lance 
spirit which can fight for hire under one banner, as 
valiantly as under another — in a base cause as well 
as in a righteous one. Nor did pride of intellect, 
exulting in uncommon forensic dexterity, betray 
him into that habit of mind which derives its keen- 
est gratification from making "the worse appear the 
better reason." And all his skill would have failed 
him here had he tried to be otherwise. For if there 
was one quality more than another that Abraham 
Lincoln lacked, it must have been the kind of ver- 



TRUTH IN LAW 59 

satility of which Cardinal Duperron boasted, when 
he said, in response to a compliment by King Henry 
III, on the convincing eloquence with which the 
prelate had proved the existence of the Deity : 
"Sire, I can now turn about, if it pleases Your Ma- 
jesty, and prove to you, with arguments equally 
irrefutable, that there is no God." 

Lincoln's intellect was of a wholly different cast. 
It had been devoted to the truth, with single-minded 
fealty, from boyhood. At a time when children's 
thoughts usually run on play, his had begun to puzzle 
out the problems of life. Nothing but the facts 
would content him. And whether he acquired them 
by observation, dug them out of books, or picked 
them up from chance conversations, there was no 
rest until they had been brought well within the 
circle of his comprehension. Referring, at a maturer 
period, to this trait, he said: — 

''Among my earliest recollections I remember 
how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when 
anybody talked to me in a way I could not under- 
stand. I don't think I ever got angry at anything 
else in my life. But that always disturbed my tem- 
per, and has ever since. I can remember going to my 
little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an 
evening with my father, and spending no small part 
of the night walking up and down, and trying to 
make out what was the exact meaning of some of 
their, to me, dark sayings. I could not sleep, though 
I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt after an 
idea, until I caught it; and when I thought I had 
got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over 



6o HONEST ABE 

and over, — until I had put it in language plain 
enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to compre- 
hend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it 
has stuck by me; for I am never easy now, when I 
am handling a thought, till I have bounded it North, 
and bounded it South, and bounded it East, and 
bounded it West." 24 

This eagerness to see every side of a subject made 
trouble, at times, for the juvenile inquirer. His 
Cousin Dennis has illustrated this, in a character- 
istic little thumb-nail sketch. Chatting about those 
early days, in his old age, Mr. Hanks said: — 

"Sometimes a preacher, 'r a circuit-ridin' jedge, 
'r lyyer, 'r a stump-speakin' polytician, 'r a school- 
teacher 'd come along. When one o' them rode up, 
Tom'd go out an' say, — "Light, stranger,' like it 
was polite to do. Then Abe 'd come lopin* out on his 
long legs, throw one over the top rail and begin 
firin' questions. Tom'd tell him to quit, but it 
did n't do no good, so Tom'd have to bang him on 
the side o' his head with his hat. Abe'd go off a 
spell an' fire sticks at the snow-birds, an' whistle like 
he did n't keer. *Pap thinks it ain't polite to ask 
folks so many questions,' he'd say. 'I reckon I was 
n't born to be polite, Denny. Thar's so darned 
many things I want to know. An' how else am I 
goin* to git to know 'em?'" ^^ 

The habit of asking questions remained with Lin- 
coln to the end of the chapter. Frankly declaring 
himself ignorant concerning many things, on many 
occasions, he laid his face low, as the Persians say, at 
the threshold of truth. Indeed, no forceful character 



TRUTH IN LAW 61 

in recent history was so free from pride of mentality, 
so willing to admit that he did not understand some 
important matter, or that, perchance, a trivial one 
had escaped his knowledge. Taking stock of him- 
self, during middle-life, for an inquiring biographer, 
he summed up his intellectual attainments in two 
words, — ' ' education defective. ' ' To a young friend 
who, at a still later period, pointed out an error of 
speech, he called himself "deplorably ignorant." 
When an opponent taunted him with having "care- 
fully written" an address, he replied before his next 
audience: " I admit that it was. I am not a master 
of language. I have not a fine education." 

And when he had composed a certain notable 
letter, he laid it before a learned neighbor, with the 
words: "I think it is all right, but grammar, you 
know, is not my stronghold ; and as several persons 
will probably read that little thing, I wish you would 
look it over carefully, and see if it needs doctoring 
anywhere." 

Perhaps we should add that the missive did need a 
touch of "doctoring," and that the writer submitted 
to the treatment with good grace. Nor was he less 
ingenuous on other occasions. One day in court a 
lawyer, quoting a Latin maxim, bowed to him and 
said: "That is so, is it not, Mr. Lincoln?" 

To which he answered: "If that's Latin, you had 
better call another witness." 

So, during a visit by a distinguished company, 
when one gentleman turned to another and repeated 
a quotation from the ancient classics, Lincoln 
leaned forward in his chair, looked inquiringly at 



62 HONEST ABE 

them, and remarked, with a smile: "Which, I sup- 
pose you are both aware, / do not understand." 

Equally free from false pretense concerning his 
work at the bar, he would turn the compliment of an 
admirer with some such phrase as, "Oh, I am only a 
mast- fed lawyer." 

The same spirit of candid self-appraisal was strik- 
ingly manifested during the McCormick reaper suit, 
in which Lincoln, with other lawyers, had been re- 
tained for the defense. When the cause came to trial, 
he found himself elbowed, so to say, out of a leading 
part by Edwin M. Stanton. Yet while listening to 
the argument of the colleague who had thus dis- 
placed him, he forgot his disappointment, keen 
though it was, in his admiration of the great advo- 
cate's masterly plea. Indeed, Lincoln is said to have 
been so moved that he hardly repressed his enthusi- 
asm in open court; and upon the conclusion of the 
address, he remarked to one of the clients who had 
retained him : "Emerson, it would have been a great 
mistake if I had spoken in this case. I did not fully 
understand it." "^ 

These confessions, under all their varying circum- 
stances, showed how honest the man could be. The 
simple words, " I do not know," are among the hard- 
est to pronounce in the language. Still he must use 
them freely who would find the key to Pilate's age- 
worn riddle, and behold the fair vision of Truth, 
at last, face to face. So believed this conscientious 
lawyer, who realized, however, that here his duty 
began rather than ended. For it was not until all 
the questions in a legal tangle had been answered 



TRUTH IN LAW 63 

and all the perplexities straightened out, not until 
he had gone at the very heart of a problem, — to use 
his own expression, — "like a dog at a root," and 
laid the facts bare to the last fiber, that Lincoln's 
intellectual probity arose to its full stature. Then 
all concessions were at an end. His logical mind, 
a marvel of close and clear thinking, progressed 
through a subject, step for step, from premise to 
conclusion, with unerring precision. There was no 
retreat, no dodging, no attempt to evade or color the 
inevitable result. If that result stood in the way of 
his desires, so much the worse for those desires. He 
sought the truth for the truth's sake. Having fol- 
lowed a chain of reasoning from start to finish, with 
an utter disregard of personal interests, — his own, 
no less than those of others, — he was as loyal to 
the outcome as he had been to the mental process 
whereby it had been reached. Lincoln never appar- 
ently resorted to the meanest of pettifogging — that 
of a man at the bar of his own conscience. As he 
could not tolerate a fallacious premise, he could not 
argue to a false conclusion. Utterly unable to de- 
ceive himself, he was incapable of deceiving others ; 
and once an essential truth had entered into his con- 
sciousness, there was not room enough in that whole 
gigantic frame, if he spoke at all, for its concealment. 
How marked were these characteristics may be 
inferred from the fact that they evoked comment 
among lawyers and judges who are credited them- 
selves with a high standard of professional honor. 
David Davis, who presided for nearly fourteen 
years over the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois, in 



64 HONEST ABE 

which Lincoln tried most of his cases, said concern- 
ing this upright advocate: "The framework of his 
mental and moral being was honesty, and a wrong 
cause was poorly defended by him. The ability, 
which some eminent lawyers possess, of explaining 
away the bad points of a cause by ingenious sophis- 
try, was denied him. In order to bring into full 
activity his great powers, it was necessary that he 
should be convinced of the right and justice of the 
matter which he advocated." ^^ 

Similar comments have been made by the Judges 
of the Illinois Supreme Court, in which, for a period 
of twenty years, he had an unusual number of cases. 
What these experienced jurists thought concerning 
this aspect of Lincoln's nature was summed up, so to 
say, by Judge Caton, in the single sentence: "He 
seemed entirely ignorant of the art of deception or of 
dissimulation." ^^ 

To which should be added the observations made 
by Judge Thomas Drummond, from the bench of 
the United States Circuit Court, at Chicago: "Such 
was the transparent candor and integrity of his na- 
ture that he could not well or strongly argue a side 
or a cause that he thought wrong. Of course he felt 
it his duty to say what could be said, and to leave 
the decision to others; but there could be seen in 
such cases the inward struggle of his own mind." ^^ 

Lincoln's commendable weakness in this respect 
was equally patent to his associates at the bar. Few 
of them, if any, knew him so well as Leonard Swett, 
who touches on his friend's inability to be otherwise 
than intellectually honest, in these words: "If his 



TRUTH IN LAW 65 

own mind failed to be satisfied, he had little power 
to satisfy anybody else. He never made a sophisti- 
cal argument in his life, and never could make one. 
I think he was of less real aid in trying a thoroughly 
bad case than any man I was ever associated with. 
If he could not grasp the whole case and believe in 
it, he was never inclined to touch it."^° 

In the same strain wrote Henry C. Whitney: "It 
was morally impossible for Lincoln to argue dis- 
honestly. He could no more do it than he could 
steal. It was the same thing to him, in essence, to 
despoil a man of his property by larceny or by illogi- 
cal or flagitious reasoning; and even to defeat a 
suitor by technicalities, or by merely arbitrary law, 
savored strongly of dishonesty to him. He tolerated 
it sometimes, but always with a grimace." '^ 

A number of other fellow-attorneys have expressed 
similar opinions. To quote them all might lead to a 
veritable paroxysm of citation; and needlessly so, 
for enough has been said to show that in refusing 
unworthy cases Lincoln did simple justice by the 
rejected litigants, as well as by himself. 

But it should not be inferred that he looked with 
misgivings on every retainer which was offered to 
him, or that he peered unduly about in search of 
reasons for turning patrons away. On the contrary, 
Lincoln welcomed the general run of business as any 
lawyer might. Like most men who are free from 
guile, he usually suspected none in others. 

He certainly did not guard himself against decep- 
tion, as did that fine, old-fashioned practitioner of 
the Colonial school, George Wythe, who, when there 



66 HONEST ABE 

seemed reason to mistrust a client's initial statement, 
required it to be made under oath. On circuit, more- 
over, Lincoln generally found but scant opportunity 
for probing into his suits before they came to trial. 
Acting as counsel for local attorneys, he had to rely 
upon them for the proper preparation of their cases ; 
and so it happened that he found himself at times 
in court supporting litigants whose contentions the 
evidence wholly failed to sustain. 

When a mishap of this nature occurred, trouble 
ensued. The recently alert advocate — all enthusi- 
asm, courage, and skill — lapsed into a dispirited 
pleader whose movements seemed almost mechan- 
ical. In fact, if we may credit the traditions of the 
circuit, his thoughts were engaged, from that mo- 
ment, not on how to win the case, but on how to get 
out of it. Particularly was this so when, taken by 
surprise in the midst of a criminal trial, he became 
convinced — as happened on several occasions — 
of his client's guilt. 

An instance in point has been related by Judge 
Parks, a prominent member, a^t the time, of the 
Illinois bar. He writes: "A man was indicted for 
larceny. Lincoln, Young, and myself defended him. 
Lincoln was satisfied by the evidence that he was 
guilty and ought to be convicted. He called Young 
and myself aside, and said, ' If you can say anything 
for the man, do it, — I can't. If I attempt, the jury 
will see that I think he is guilty, and convict him, 
of course.* The case was submitted by us to the 
jury without a word. The jury failed to agree, 
and before the next term the man died. Lincoln's 



TRUTH IN LAW 67 

honesty undoubtedly saved him from the peniten- 
tiary." ^2 

A similar difficulty arose in the Patterson murder 
trial, a case of some celebrity that held the center 
of the judicial stage for some days in Champaign 
County. The prosecution was conducted by Dis- 
trict Attorney Lamon; the defense, by Leonard 
Swett and his friend Abraham Lincoln. As the evi- 
dence against the prisoner developed, his counsel 
realized that they were defending a guilty man. The 
discovery appears to have unnerved Lincoln who, 
as the District Attorney expressed it, "felt himself 
morally paralyzed." Acknowledging this condition 
to his associate, he said: "Swett, the man is guilty. 
You defend him, — I can't." 

There is reason to think that Lincoln urged his 
colleague privately before Judge Davis, the presid- 
ing magistrate, to join him in arranging for a plea 
of manslaughter, with the understanding that their 
client should receive the minimum sentence. This 
proposition Swett apparently brushed aside. He 
conducted the defense to its formal conclusion, made 
his argument to the jury, and — again quoting La- 
mon — "saved the guilty man from justice." A 
considerable fee was paid for that signal service, but 
Lincoln is said to have declined any share of the 
money.^' 

In civil actions, he disposed even more summarily 
of clients who had deceived him, or who persisted 
in litigating over matters that were found to lack 
merit. Recalling such instances, Mr. Herndon says: 
"His retention by a man to defend a lawsuit did 



68 HONEST ABE 

not prevent him from throwing it up in its most criti- 
cal stage if he believed he was espousing an unjust 
cause. This extreme conscientiousness and disre- 
gard of the alleged sacredness of the professional 
cloak robbed him of much so-called success at the 
bar. He once wrote to one of our clients, ' I do not 
think there is the least use of doing anything more 
with your lawsuit. I not only do not think you are 
sure to gain it, but I do think you are sure to lose it. 
Therefore the sooner it ends the better.'" '* 

Another anecdote of similar bearing is furnished 
by J. Henry Shaw, a lawyer in practice years ago at 
Beardstown, Illinois. This contributor writes: "Lin- 
coln came into my office one day with the remark, 
*I see you've been suing some of my clients, and 
I 've come down to see about it.' He had reference 
to a suit I had brought to enforce the specific per- 
formance of a contract. I explained the case to him, 
and showed my proofs. He seemed surprised that I 
should deal so frankly with him, and said he would 
be as frank with me; that my client was justly 
entitled to a decree, and he should so represent it to 
the court; and that it was against his principles to 
contest a clear matter of right. So my client got a 
deed for a farm which, had another lawyer been in 
Mr. Lincoln's place, would have been consumed by 
the costs of litigation for years, with the result prob- 
ably the same in the end." ^^ 

Still another civil suit was well under way before 
Lincoln discovered the defendant, whom he repre- 
sented, to be in the wrong. This man, a live-stock 
breeder, had sold the plaintiff a number of sheep at 



TRUTH IN LAW 69 

a stipulated average price. When the animals were 
delivered, many of them, according to the pur- 
chaser's claim, proved to be so young that they did 
not fulfill the conditions of the contract, and he sued 
for damages. The evidence produced at the trial 
sustained the complaint. Several witnesses testi- 
fied, moreover, that according to usage such of the 
animals as were under a certain age should be re- 
garded as lambs, and of less value than full-grown 
sheep. No sooner had these facts been established 
than Mr. Lincoln changed his line of action. Ceas- 
ing to contest the case, he directed all his attention 
to the task of ascertaining exactly how many lambs 
had been delivered. This done, he briefly addressed 
the jury. They were obliged, he conceded, to bring 
in a verdict against his client; but he asked them to 
make sure of the exact damage sustained by the 
plaintiff, in order that both parties might have 
simple justice. And this was done.^^ 

To these stories should be added the testimony of 
Judge Joseph Gillespie, a leading Illinois attorney: 
"Mr. Lincoln's love of justice and fair play was his 
predominating trait. I have often listened to him 
when I thought he would certainly state his case out 
of court. It was not in his nature to assume, or 
attempt to bolster up, a false position. He would 
abandon his case first. He did so in the case of 
Buckmaster for the use of Dedham versus Beems 
and Arthur, in our Supreme Court, in which I hap- 
pened to be opposed to him. Another gentleman, 
less fastidious, took Mr. Lincoln's place and gained 
the case." ^' 



70 HONEST ABE 

But perhaps his most notable desertion of a client 
occurred once at Postville, before Circuit Judge 
Treat, in the midst of a Logan County trial. The 
suit of Hoblit against Farmer had come up on appeal 
from a decision given by some local justice of the 
peace. What the alleged circumstances were Lin- 
coln did not know until he was retained, in the Cir- 
cuit Court, to represent the plaintiff. That worthy 
went upon the witness stand to prove his claim. Af- 
ter testifying about the items of the account against 
Farmer, and after allowing all set-offs, he swore 
positively that the balance had not been paid. Yet 
when the defendant's attorney, Asahel Gridley, pro- 
duced a receipt in full, given prior to the bringing of 
the action, the witness was obliged to admit that he 
had signed the paper. Whether or not it had been 
introduced at the original hearing is left in doubt, as 
the story goes; but there can be no question about 
the plaintiff's surprise. Taken off his guard, Hoblit 
turned to his counsel and exclaimed that he "sup- 
posed the cuss had lost it.** Whereupon Lincoln 
arose, and left the court-room. Taking notice of his 
departure, Judge Treat sent the sheriff, Dr. John 
Deskins, in pursuit. When that officer found the 
missing lawyer, he was seated in the tavern across 
the court-house square, with his feet on the stove 
and his head among the clouds. 

" Mr. Lincoln," said the sheriff, "the judge wants 
you." 

"Oh, does he?" was the reply. "Well, you go 
back and tell the judge that I can't come. My 
hands are dirty and I came over to clean them."^^ 



TRUTH IN LAW 71 

The message was duly delivered to the honorable 
court, and Lincoln's unprincipled client suffered a 
nonsuit. ^^ 

There is a pretty little sequel to this episode. 
Some time later, when Gridley discontinued prac- 
tice for more lucrative pursuits, he manifested his 
confidence in Lincoln, as well as his esteem, by trans- 
ferring his entire law business to him without com- 
pensation. This was somewhat after the manner in 
which Robert Carter Nicholas, a veteran member 
of the profession during a former generation, had 
turned over his clientage to Patrick Henry. But no 
such encounter appears to have taken place between 
the Virginians as has just been related concerning 
the Illinois men. Nor is it to be expected. That 
abandonment by Lincoln of a case in mid-career, 
so to say, without regard for the judge's wishes, 
is perhaps unique. It certainly is characteristic. 
There are instances of honorable counsel, who, find- 
ing themselves in the course of a trial grossly misled 
by their clients, have declined to serve them further, 
and have obtained leave from the court to withdraw. 
But if any other celebrated American pleader, at 
any time during his career, rushed from a court- 
room in a passion of righteous indignation over such 
a deception, and refused to return upon the man- 
date of the presiding magistrate, that occurrence is 
not commonly known. Moreover, from a profes- 
sional point of view, the propriety, generally speak- 
ing, of Lincoln's course in these matters has been 
gravely questioned. Some critics, conceding the 
misconduct of the clients whom he deserted, still 



72 HONEST ABE 

appear to think that his treatment of them de- 
tracted somewhat from his character as a lawyer. 
And with reason, if an advocate's first duty, as has 
been repeatedly asserted, is fidelity to the cause in 
which his services are enlisted. Yet how far does 
that duty require him to go after he has lost confi- 
dence in the rectitude of his cause? Some barristers 
— and the number includes men of distinction — 
have frankly set no limits to their obligations. They 
hold that a lawyer, once he has accepted a client's 
retainer, is pledged to stand by him through thick 
and thin. The blacker the evidence develops against 
him, in a criminal action, or the less palpable become 
the merits of his case in a civil one, the more firmly 
they consider his counsel bound in honor to battle 
for a verdict. Should that verdict, if it is finally 
won, seem contrary to morality or justice, the fault, 
in their opinion, does not lie with the man to whose 
skill and eloquence it may be due. His attention, 
they believe, was properly fixed, to the exclusion of 
everything else, upon that part of the proceedings 
which had been committed to his care. If the same 
singleness of purpose, perhaps the same ability with 
which he discharged this function, had been exer- 
cised by the attorney on the other side, as well as 
by the judge and the jury, to say nothing of wit- 
nesses and lawmakers, the administration of justice 
would, according to their code, have been secure. It 
is as though they were priests in the temple of the 
blindfolded goddess, interceding for sinners no less 
persuasively than for saints; as though, serving 
every comer however unclean, they thought it no 



TRUTH IN LAW 73 

shame on their sacred office if they seized a chance, 
when the divinity should relax her vigilance, or the 
high-priest should nod, to jog the delicately poised 
balance in their suppliant's favor. 

Such a theory of advocacy revolted Lincoln. In- 
deed, his whole career at the bar was a protest 
against the conception of a lawyer's duty that im- 
poses upon him any fancied requirement to procure 
a judgment of which his conscience disapproves. 
He had little or no sympathy, therefore, with the 
loyalty-at-any-cost practitioners ; and he would not 
join them, it goes without saying, on those slippery 
paths of sophistry, which wind too often through the 
ivory gates of falsehood. What criticism, if any, he 
made of their conduct is not definitely known. Yet 
we almost seem to hear him exclaim, as Carlyle did, 
"Can there be a more horrible object in existence 
than an eloquent man not speaking the truth?" 

These reflections, be it said, apply all in all to 
some only of the counselors who stand by their 
colors, after they discover them to be tarnished; 
for many faithful members of the profession regard 
the advocate's mission in a different light. He is 
bound, they admit, to remain in a case after a trial 
has begun, especially if retained for the defense; and 
this, however distasteful or even reprehensible his 
client's side may prove to be. That client, according 
to their theory, must be represented, to the close 
of the action, by his legal adviser, or the whole judi- 
cial machinery, of which an attorney on each side 
is an essential part, breaks down. In this nicely 
adjusted mechanism, they claim, the functions of 



74 HONEST ABE 

the advocate, and those of the judge as well as the 
jury, are exercised on widely different planes, so that 
under normal conditions their operations can never 
coalesce. Should counsel, therefore, in the midst of 
a trial, assume the judicial role, condemn his own 
cause before the hour of judgment, and deny his own 
client the protection which had impliedly been 
pledged, he would, in their eyes, commit a gross 
breach of professional propriety. Nay, more, his 
course would involve, they contend, a betrayal of 
both court and client, — a Quixotic freak, in which 
private and public interests would alike be sacri- 
ficed. So far, both classes of practitioners who will 
not abandon a cause, after they find it tainted, ap- 
pear to move abreast; but at this point their ways 
part. While the one advocate leaves not a stone 
unturned, as the expression goes, to extricate his 
man — right or wrong — with a sweeping victory, 
the other, deeming himself under no obligation to 
strive for an obviously unjust verdict, remains to 
safeguard his client's legal rights, presents his case 
fairly on the evidence, and does in his behalf all that 
an honorable officer of the court may do, without 
lending himself to an evasion of the law or a pers^er- 
sion of justice. 

This latter conception of what a lawyer owes at 
once to conscience and to society had doubtless im- 
pressed itself on Lincoln's good sense. For he tried 
hard enough, in several instances, to conduct forlorn 
hopes to their bitter conclusions. But here again 
the compelling honesty of the man's nature thwarted 
his efforts, until it would almost seem as if, by a sin- 



TRUTH IN LAW 75 

gular paradox, he really evinced more loyalty when 
he deserted, than when he stood his ground to make 
a half-hearted fight. 

Lincoln's ineptitude on the latter occasions vexed 
his colleagues not a little. They appear to have been 
embarrassed more by his halting cooperation than 
by an out-and-out withdrawal from a case. One of 
his local associates on the circuit, Henry C. Whitney, 
has related several unpleasant experiences of this 
nature; and from the warmth with which he writes, 
many years after the event, one may infer how acute 
must have been the narrator's irritation at the time. 
Perhaps one of these anecdotes, in Mr. Whitney's 
own language, will best illustrate the whole peculiar 
matter. He is telling about the trial of a man for a 
homicide committed at Sadorus, Illinois: — 

"When the facts were brought out before the 
petit jury, it was very clearly developed that the in- 
dictment should have been for murder, instead of — 
what it was — for manslaughter, and Lincoln was 
evidently of that opinion. Mr. Lincoln, Leonard 
Swett, and myself were associated for the defense. 
The wife of the accused had wealthy and influential 
relations in Vermillion County, and no pains were 
spared to make a good defense. Swett and myself 
took the lawyer's view, and were anxious to acquit 
entirely. Lincoln sat in our counsels, but took little 
part in them. His opinion was fixed and could 
not be changed. He joined in the trial, but with no 
enthusiasm. His logically honest mind chilled his 
efforts. 

"Lincoln was to make the last speech to the jury 



76 HONEST ABE 

on our side, and Swett the speech preceding. Swett 
was then, as he was long afterward, the most effec- 
tive jury advocate in the State, except Lincoln. He 
occupied one evening on this occasion, and when he 
closed, I was full of faith that our client would be 
acquitted entirely. Lincoln followed on our side, 
the next morning, and while he made some good 
points, the honesty of his mental processes forced 
him into a line of argument and admission that was 
very damaging. We all felt that he had hurt our 
case. 

"I recollect one incident that we regarded as 
especially atrocious. Swett had dwelt with deep 
pathos upon the condition of the family — there be- 
ing several small children, and his wife then on the 
verge of confinement with another. Lincoln himself 
adverted to this, but only to disparage it as an argu- 
ment, saying that the proper place for such appeals 
was to a legislature who framed laws, rather than to 
a jury who must decide upon evidence. Nor was 
this done on account of any dislike to Swett, for he 
was especially fond of Swett as an advocate and 
associate. In point of fact, our client was found 
guilty, and sent to the penitentiary for three years; 
and Lincoln, whose merciless logic drove him into 
the belief that the culprit was guilty of murder, had 
his humanity so wrought upon, that he induced the 
Governor to pardon him out after he had served one 
year." ^o 

If Mr. Lincoln's course during that trial struck his 
fellow-practitioners as "atrocious," it might be in- 
teresting to know what epithet would have sufficed 



TRUTH IN LAW 77 

to express their feelings had they been concerned 
with him in his first matter before the Supreme 
Court of IlHnois. Appearing on that occasion for the 
appellant, — according to Judge Treat, the com- 
monly accepted authority for an extraordinary tale, 
— he said: "This is the first case I have ever had in 
this court, and I have therefore examined it with 
great care. As the court will perceive by looking at 
the abstract of the record, the only question in the 
case is one of authority. I have not been able to find 
any authority to sustain my side of the case, but I 
have found several cases directly in point, on the 
other side. I will now give these authorities to the 
court, and then submit the case." ^^ 

That speech is probably without parallel In the 
history of appeals from judicial decisions. An ap- 
proach to the spirit which actuated it may be found 
in the career of William Pinkney, the renowned 
Maryland advocate. Having gained a verdict for a 
client from the Court of Chancery, he became con- 
vinced of its Injustice when the claim was made, on 
appeal, that not all the parties In interest were be- 
fore the court. The point Impressed Itself on his 
mind as well taken. He promptly so declared, and 
without any attempt at sustaining the decree, al- 
lowed it to be reversed. 

Lawyers, whose fealty to the truth exercised such 
an overmastering Influence upon their conduct, 
would have graced the bench. Yet neither of these 
Illustrious men, It should be added, attained judicial 
honors; unless Indeed we count Lincoln's Irregular 
elevation to the judgment-seat by David Davis, 



78 HONEST ABE 

who appointed him, from time to time, — without 
legal sanction, however, for so doing, — to preside 
over his court. The substitution appears to have 
been made for the convenience of all concerned, 
when the judge could not be present; and both 
sides are said, as a rule, to have consented gladly 
thereto. ""^ Once a whole term for Champaign 
County was held, it is asserted, in this unauthorized 
way. But how successfully the pseudo-magistrate 
dispensed justice must, by reason of the meager de- 
tails that have been preserved, be left largely to 
conjecture. Did Lincoln, some may ask, really pos- 
sess the attributes of a great judge? The query will, 
perhaps, suggest itself to those who are fond of re- 
constructing history around events that failed to 
happen. If they take account of his faculty for see- 
ing both sides of a question with crystal clearness, 
his mellow wisdom, his inflexible love of truth, and, 
above all, his militant sympathy with the right 
against the wrong, their fancy may well picture him, 
under altered circumstances, mounting to a place 
beside the leading jurists of Illinois. Breese, Caton, 
and their compeers, developing that admirable 
system of jurisprudence which distinguished the 
Prairie State, might, indeed, have profited by his 
collaboration. 



CHAPTER III 

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 

IF the judicial rather than the forensic tempera- 
ment swayed Lincoln's conduct as a lawyer, it 
should be remembered that this was a drawback 
only when he found himself on the wrong side of a 
suit. When he stood on the right side, with time 
enough to exert all the faculties of his slow-moving 
mind, no advocate in the State was more skillful and 
effective. Indeed, those very qualities which im- 
paired his usefulness for the winning of a bad cause 
made him especially strong in a good one. After he 
himself was convinced that his client ought to pre- 
vail, he rarely failed to imbue judge and jury with 
the same belief.^ This should be attributed some* 
what to Lincoln's reputation for avoiding unworthy 
cases. The commonly accepted idea that he would 
appear only in matters of which his conscience ap- 
proved, gave him, from the very beginning of a 
trial, an advantage not to be despised. But what he 
did, or omitted to do, as the proceedings advanced, 
contributed still more, it may be needless to add, 
toward the gaining of a verdict. His methods make 
one wonder whether there may not be more than a 
stale gibe at the legal profession tucked away some- 
where in the query of the lad who asked, — "Father, 
do lawyers tell the truth?" and the jesting answer, 
— "Yes, my son; lawyers will do anything to win a 



8o HONEST ABE 

case." For Lincoln in court was truth in action. His 
simple adherence to facts made as vivid an impres- 
sion on those who heard him as did his intellectual 
powers, which were, by the way, of no mean order. 
The man's interpretation of the law, his logic, his 
eloquence, his humor, his homely, common-sense 
view of things — all shone in the light of a never- 
failing candor. While he was trying a cause, stran- 
gers who happened to enter the court-room usually 
found themselves, after a few moments, — if con- 
temporary accounts may be accepted, — on his side 
and wishing him success. Yet success, in the ordin- 
ary meaning of that term, did not, to all appear- 
ances, alone concern him. What engaged most of his 
attention, apparently, was how to present the affair 
in hand as it had actually happened, without regard 
to his client's interests. In fact, every step that he 
took, as the trial moved along, seemed intended, not 
so much to secure a victory as to sift out the truth 
and establish justice at any cost. 

Reverting, unconsciously perhaps, to the time- 
honored though quite obsolete idea of a counselor's 
duties, he conducted himself more like the helpful 
friend or adviser of the court than like a modern 
advocate striving for a decision. As one of his most 
intimate colleagues, Leonard Swett, relates: "Where 
most lawyers would object he would say he 'reck- 
oned' it would be fair to let this in, or that; and 
sometimes, when his adversary could not quite 
prove what Lincoln knew to be the truth, he 'reck- 
oned ' it would be fair to admit the truth to be so- 
and-so. When he did object to the court, and when 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 81 

he heard his objections answered, he would often 
say, 'Well, I reckon I must be wrong.'" ^ 

This equable disposition extended in a marked 
degree to Lincoln's manner of conducting an exam- 
ination. His own witnesses usually told their story 
in response to a few straightforward, kindly ques- 
tions, and those who took the stand on the other side 
were treated by him with the same frank courtesy. 
He had a good-natured way of making these people 
feel at home amidst unaccustomed surroundings, 
while draining them adroitly of what they knew 
about the case on trial. It was so clearly his aim, 
moreover, to arrive at the facts, rather than to score 
winning points, that time after time hostile witnesses 
mellowed under the charm of his sincerity and, con- 
trary to their original intentions, told the truth. 
Candor begets candor. The light which shines 
through an upright man's eyes often kindles a re- 
sponsive gleam in the heart of a shuffler. And when, 
as in Lincoln's case, that upright man was a shrewd 
lawyer, controlling an unwilling witness with all the 
masterful tact of a seer to whom human nature must 
have read like an open book, we begin to understand 
how one usually self-restrained biographer — him- 
self a member of the bar — came to believe the cross- 
examiner "endowed," at such moments, "with 
psychic qualities of extraordinary power." 

Less occult gifts, however, suffice to explain some 
of these achievements. For here, as elsewhere in 
Lincoln's practice, notable results were reached by 
simple, open methods. How easily he extracted the 
facts, for instance, from one unfriendly witness has 



82 HONEST ABE 

been told In a characteristic anecdote by the man 
himself. This was the Honorable James T. Hoblit, 
of Lincoln, Illinois. Recalling his discomfiture and 
the attorney who caused it, he once said : — 

"I shall never forget my experience with him. I 
was subpoenaed in a case brought by one Paullin 
against my uncle, and I knew too much about the 
matter in dispute for my uncle's good. The case was 
not of vital importance, but it seemed very serious 
to me, for I was a mere boy at the time. Mr. Paullin 
had owned a bull which was continually raiding his 
neighbor's corn, and one day my uncle ordered his 
boys to drive the animal out of his fields, and not to 
use it too gently either. Well, the boys obeyed the 
orders only too literally, for one of them harpooned 
the bull with a pitchfork, injuring it permanently, 
and I saw enough of the occurrence to make me a 
dangerous witness. The result was that Paullin 
sued my uncle, the boys were indicted for malicious 
mischief, Mr. Lincoln was retained by the plaintiff, 
who was determined to make an example of some- 
body, and I was subpoenaed as a witness. 

"My testimony was, of course, of the highest 
possible importance, because the plaintiff could n't 
make my cousins testify, and I had every reason to 
want to forget what I had seen, and though pretty 
frightened, I determined, when I took the stand, to 
say as little as possible. Well, as soon as I told Mr. 
Lincoln my full name he became very much inter- 
ested, asking me if I was n't some relative of his old 
friend John Hoblit who kept the halfway house 
between Springfield and Bloomington; and when I 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 83 

answered that he was my grandfather, Mr. Lincoln 
grew very friendly, plying me with all sorts of ques- 
tions about family matters; which put me com- 
pletely at my ease, and before I knew what was hap- 
pening, I had forgotten to be hostile and he had the 
whole story. After the trial he met me outside the 
court-room and stopped to tell me that he knew I 
had n't wanted to say anything against my people, 
but that though he sympathized with me, I had 
acted rightly and no one could criticize me for what 
I had done. The whole matter was afterward ad- 
justed, but I never forgot his friendly and encourag- 
ing words at a time when I needed sympathy and 
consolation." ^ 

Of course, all opposing witnesses were not so pli- 
ant. They failed frequently to give Lincoln the 
answers that he sought; yet his patience and cour- 
tesy lost nothing of their fine flavor, as long as the 
man on the stand appeared to be telling the truth. 
There were no efforts made to confuse him by art- 
fully framed questions, or to entrap him into seem- 
ing contradictions. Above all, he was safe from 
brow-beating, because this level-headed advocate ap- 
parently never committed the fault of harassing an 
honest witness. Lincoln's spirit of fair play forbade 
any such behavior, even if the spirit of wisdom had 
not taught him, from the very beginning, what so 
many learned gentlemen at the bar fail, throughout 
their entire careers, to grasp, that the art of cross- 
examination rarely consists in examining crossly. 

But there came a time, now and then, when this 
even-tempered giant, with his homely, magnetic 



84 HONEST ABE 

smile, did become cross — how cross, only those who 
caught the direct impact of his anger fully realized. 
Let some scamp tcy to tell him a lie from the wit- 
ness-chair, and the fellow's troubles began. He could 
hardly have brought his spurious wares to a less prof- 
itable market. For, slow as Lincoln generally was 
to doubt another's probity, so quick was he to detect 
false values when that probity fell under suspicion. 
And cunningly woven, indeed, must have been the 
web of perjury which his logical mind — once it set 
about the task — could not unravel. He had a dis- 
concerting way of stripping unsound testimony, 
with one searching question after another, until the 
futile cheat lay exposed in all its nakedness. Then 
his contempt for the discredited witness knew no 
bounds. Kindness gave way to severity. Words 
that scorched came hot and fast. It was as if some 
sacred thing had been violated. And what happens 
after one arouses the fury of a patient man, received 
uncommonly vivid illustration. 

He was once trying a railway case for the defense, 
when the plaintiff, testifying in his own behalf, fla- 
grantly misstated certain facts. The perjurer's at- 
torney, on addressing the jury, tried to excite prej- 
udice against the defendant company by making the 
trite charge that on one side was "a flesh-and- 
blood man," with a soul such as the jurymen had, 
while on the other was a soulless corporation. To 
which Lincoln indignantly replied: "Counsel avers 
that his client has a soul. This is possible, of course, 
but from the way he has testified under oath in this 
case, to gain, or hoping to gain, a few paltry dollars, 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 85 

he would sell, nay, has already sold, his little soul very 
low. But our client is but a conventional name for 
thousands of widows and orphans whose husbands' 
and parents' hard earnings are represented by this 
defendant, and who possess souls which they would 
not swear away as the plaintiff has done for ten 
million times as much as is at stake here." ^ 

It would be wrong to infer that Lincoln's scorn for 
untruthfulness on the stand was visited upon the 
heads of opposing witnesses only. His own wit- 
nesses, when they sulked under cross-examination or 
tried to mislead counsel on the other side, had a 
taste of his quality in this respect. He even went so 
far, at times, as to rebuke them in open court for 
their misbehavior. 

An occurrence of this character — there are said 
to have been several — is related by a colleague of 
Lincoln, Anthony Thornton, who says: "On one 
occasion he and I were associate counsel in an im- 
portant lawsuit, when he exhibited his love of right 
and fairness in a remarkable manner. John T. Stu- 
art, of Springfield, was counsel for the opposite 
party. It was a trial by jury. I examined the wit- 
nesses and Mr. Lincoln attended to the legal ques- 
tions involved. I had examined an intelligent wit- 
ness whose testimony was clear and satisfactory, and 
readily given. When the cross-examination com- 
menced, this witness hesitated, manifested reluc- 
tance to answer, and was evasive in his replies. 
Mr. Lincoln arose and addressed the court, and pub- 
licly and severely reprimanded the witness. It was 
a dangerous experiment which might have brought 



86 • HONEST ABE 

discredit on our most important witness. His ob- 
ject, however, was accomplished, and the witness 
answered promptly all questions on cross-examina- 
tion." ' 

This act is perhaps unique in the annals of the 
American bar. At all events, its fellow — if there 
ever was one — has not become known to general 
literature. Nor is this surprising, for there have not 
been many Lincolns, and reputable lawyers of to- 
day hardly see fit to follow such an example. A 
pleader who would do so — in fact, one who gener- 
ally speaking would employ that remarkable man's 
methods with success — must not only have faith 
in the merits of his cases, but he must be efficiently 
honest, too, to the backbone. For Lincoln's plan of 
conduct rested upon the single virtue which, in the 
nature of things, is least easily simulated. Had he 
failed at crucial points to be straightforward, with- 
out shuffling or reserve, had the delicate image of 
truth, which he sought to rear, leaned ever so little 
out of true, to the north or the south or the east or 
the west, that entire fair fabric would, at the first 
jolt, inevitably have fallen to the ground in ruins 
before the very eyes of the jury. 

How well this advocate stood the test in doubtless 
many trying situations, judges and lawyers have 
admiringly recounted. Justice Breese spoke, as it 
were, for the bench when he said that Lincoln prac- 
ticed "none of the chicanery of the profession to 
which he was devoted, nor any of those mean, and 
little, and shuffling, and dishonorable arts all do not 
avoid." ^ The judgment of the bar was as compre- 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 87 

hensively summed up in these words of Mr. Whit- 
ney: "Unlike the average lawyer, he would not do 
anything mean, or which savored of dishonesty or 
sharp practice, or which required absolute sophistry 
or chicanery in order to succeed." 

Turning up a leaf in his own early experiences, 
that same associate says: "When I was new to the 
bar, I was trying to keep some evidence out, and 
was getting along very well with the court, when 
Lincoln sung out, ' I reckon it would be fair to let 
that in.' It sounded treasonable, but I had to get 
used to this eccentricity." ^ 

Perhaps the clearest conception of Lincoln's fidel- 
ity to his own high standards of practice, even when 
beset by almost compelling temptations, is derived 
from Mr. Herndon's account of an incident which 
occurred during their partnership. To do the story 
justice it should be told, without abridgment, in the 
narrator's own language. 

"Messrs. Stuart and Edwards," he relates, "once 
brought a suit against a client of ours, which in- 
volved the title to considerable property. At that 
time we had only two or three terms of court, and 
the docket was somewhat crowded. The plaintiff's 
attorneys were pressing us for a trial, and we were 
equally as anxious to ward it off. What we wanted 
were time and a continuance to the next term. We 
dared not make an affidavit for continuance, 
founded on facts, because no such pertinent and 
material facts as the law contemplated existed. Our 
case for the time seemed hopeless. One morning, 
however, I accidentally overheard a remark from 



88 HONEST ABE 

Stuart indicating his fear lest a certain fact should 
happen to come into our possession. I felt some 
relief, and at once drew up a fictitious plea, averring 
as best I could the substance of the doubts I knew 
existed in Stuart's mind. The plea was as skillfully 
drawn as I knew how, and was framed as if we had 
the evidence to sustain it. The whole thing was a 
sham, but so constructed as to work the desired 
continuance, because I knew that Stuart and Ed- 
wards believed the facts were as I pleaded them. 
This was done in the absence and without the knowl- 
edge of Lincoln. The plea could not be demurred to, 
and the opposing counsel dared not take the issue on 
it. It perplexed them sorely. 

"At length, before further steps were taken, Lin- 
coln came into court. He looked carefully over all 
the papers in the case, as was his custom, and seeing 
my ingenious subterfuge, asked, 'Is this seventh 
plea a good one?' Proud of the exhibition of my 
skill, I answered that it was. 'But,' he inquired in- 
credulously, *is it founded on fact?' I was obliged 
to respond in the negative, at the same time follow- 
ing up my answer with an explanation of what I had 
overheard Stuart intimate, and of how these alleged 
facts could be called facts if a certain construction 
were put upon them. I insisted that our position 
was justifiable, and that our client must have time 
or be ruined. I could see at once it failed to strike 
Lincoln as just right. He scratched his head thought- 
fully and asked, 'Had n't we better withdraw that 
plea? You know it's a sham, and a sham is very 
often but another name for a lie. Don't let it go on 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 89 

record. The cursed thing may come staring us in 
the face long after this suit has been forgotten.' The 
plea was withdrawn. By some agency — not our 
own — the case was continued and our client's inter- 
ests were saved." 

To which Mr. Herndon adds the significant com- 
ment: " I venture the assertion that he was the only 
member of the bar in Springfield who would have 
taken such a conscientious view of the matter." ^ 

Apparently Lincoln differed from his brother 
lawyers in being equipped with a vizualizing sense of 
what has well been called "the moment after." 
Taking a firm stand, moreover, on the old moral 
dictum that nothing can need a lie, he avoided the 
quirks and quillets which have so often brought re- 
proach upon the administration of the law. For 
Cicero's theory of a pleader's occasional duty "to 
maintain the plausible, though it may not be the 
truth," evidently found no favor in his eyes. Nor 
did he look more kindly upon false pleas to impede 
justice when they were made by his friends and 
colleagues. Some of them, hard-pressed for a valid 
defense, did so in the Chase case — an action 
brought before Lincoln as deputy judge, during one 
of those irregular sittings on the Circuit Court 
bench that he owed, as we have seen, to Davis's 
appointment. This particular trial, if such it may be 
called, is the only instance among his judicial experi- 
ences of which a detailed report has come down to 
us. The suit was instituted to collect a promissory 
note given by some citizens of Champaign County 
to one Chase, with the understanding that he would 



90 HONEST ABE 

establish a newspaper. Failing to keep his agree- 
ment he had, nevertheless, transferred the note be- 
fore maturity to an innocent holder, who now sued 
for the money. There was no good defense, yet sev- 
eral young lawyers had been retained by the makers 
of the note to do what they could toward warding 
off a decision. Whenever the plaintiff pressed for 
judgment, this wholfe array of budding legal talent 
ranged itself before the bench and, by resorting to 
every conceivable shift, succeeded in securing post- 
ponement after postponement. Seemingly the old 
legal maxim, "justice delayed is justice denied," 
would soon have one more literal illustration. So 
matters stood on the last day of the term. Court was 
about to close, and the plaintiff again demanded 
judgment, to which counsel for the defendants, as 
before, strenuously objected. Finally Lincoln an- 
nounced that he would return at candlelight to dis- 
pose of that case. He came accordingly, took his 
seat at the clerk's desk, and called for the papers. 
Finding no proper defense on file, he began to write 
an order, when one of the young attorneys, his friend 
and associate in several matters, interposed saying 
that a demurrer had been entered. But Lincoln 
continued to write, merely changing the form and 
reading aloud, as he wrote: — 

L.D.Chaddon | April term, 1856. 

J. D. Beasley e^ a/. H" ^"«'«^"'- 

Ordered by the Court : Plea in abatement by B. Z. 
Greene, a defendant not served, filed Saturday, 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 



91 



April 24, (?) 1856, at li o'clock a.m., be stricken 
from the files by order of Court. Demurrer to declar- 
ation, if ever there was one, overruled. Defendants, 
who are served now, at 8 o'clock p.m. of the last day 
of the term, ask to plead to the merits, which is 
denied by the Court, on the ground that the offer 
comes too late, and therefore, as by nil dicit, judg- 
ment is rendered for plaintiff. Clerk assess damages. ' ' 

"How can we get this up to the Supreme Court?" 
inquired the somewhat dazed young man who had 
spoken last. 

In Lincoln's ready reply may be discerned the 
pent-up scorn of a whole session. "You all have 
been so smart about this case," said he, "that you 
can find out for yourselves how to carry it up." 
And court stood adjourned .^^ 

A more serious affair was that of the youthful 
practitioner who disgraced himself at the Blooming- 
ton bar. While serving as a law student, he had im- 
proved the opportunity to make himself acquainted 
with certain important facts concerning a suit in 
which his preceptor represented the plaintiff. Dis- 
closing this information some time thereafter to the 
defendant, whose counsel he became, the young man 
used it in behalf of the one client against the other. 
Proceedings for his disbarment were about to ensue 
when the offender threw himself upon the clemency 
of* the court, with a promise to leave the country and 
sin no more. This impressed Judge Davis as the 
simplest way out of an unpleasant duty. He stipu- 
lated, however, that the culprit, before departing, 



92 HONEST ABE 

should submit to a rebuke in open court, and selected 
Lincoln to administer the lesson. 

There must have been more of sorrow than of 
anger in the little speech whereby this delicate office 
was discharged. The speaker, it is said, sketched 
in a few well-chosen words an attorney's obligations 
to his client, and pointed out how the man at the 
bar, by betraying those who trusted him, had for- 
feited public confidence. But most impressive of all 
was the sympathy of this highly esteemed lawyer 
for the young colleague in disgrace. "We bid you 
God-speed," he concluded, with a clasp of the hand, 
"in a work that will make you a better man." And 
a better man the other did indeed become. Seeking 
out a new field beyond the borders of the State, he 
eventually made a place for himself there as an hon- 
ored member of the profession. ^° 

To infer from either of these two episodes that 
Lincoln was disposed to lord it over his less experi- 
enced fellow barristers would be far from the fact. 
How fairly he treated them many a timid beginner 
at the bar, facing him as opposing counsel, had rea- 
son to remember. Not only did his unaffected kind- 
ness set the young men at their ease and encourage 
their efforts, but his frank concessions met them, 
as we have seen, more than halfway in establishing 
points which otherwise might have been hard to 
make. Nor were these generous little acts confined 
to our attorney's dealings with juniors. Any of the 
lawyers pitted against him might have had similar 
experiences. They certainly were favored, at times, 
beyond their legal rights, and that, too, on occasions 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 93 

remote from the publicity of the court- room. Atypi- 
cal instance may be seen in the letter from Lincoln 
to an associate that has recently come to light. It 
read, in part: "Herewith I return the notices which 
I will thank you to serve and return as before 
requested. This notice is not required by law; 
and I am giving it merely because I think fairness 
requires it." ^^ 

Concerning the writer's deportment in court, the 
judge before whom he tried probably more causes 
than before all other judges combined, tells us: 
" Mr. Lincoln was the fairest and most accommodat- 
ing of practitioners, granting all favors which he 
could do consistently with his duty to his client, and 
rarely availing himself of an unwary oversight of his 
adversary." ^^ 

To what lengths he carried this equitable proced- 
ure evinced itself during the trial of a railroad suit, 
at which counsel on the other side were, so to say, 
caught napping. The case having gone in Lincoln's 
favor, a decision was about to be given for the 
amount claimed by his client, deducting a proved 
and allowed counter-claim, when the successful at- 
torney became convinced that his opponents had not 
proved all the items justly due them as offsets. 
He promptly called attention to this omission. The 
judge, agreeing with him, noted an additional allow- 
ance against his client, and pronounced judgment 
accordingly.^^ Even-handed Justice herself could 
not have trimmed the balance truer. Here was "the 
square deal" incarnate. And its spirit, interesting 
to observe, animated Abraham Lincoln's work-a- 



94 HONEST ABE 

day conduct, in this most trying of all professions, 
half a century or so before another distinguished 
American, holding an ideal aloft for the admiration 
of a nation, raised the expression itself to the dignity 
of a political watchword. 

Lincoln's tendency to concede all that might 
reasonably be demanded of him during a trial man- 
ifested itself chiefly when he came to the closing 
argument. Here, neither the law nor the evidence 
could be noticed to suffer the slightest perversion 
at his hands. In fact, as has been frequently re- 
marked, the statement with which he customarily 
began a summing-up covered the case for the other 
side more fully and more forcibly than did anything 
offered by his opponent. For this man's conscience 
ruled his intellect. In his make-up were happily 
blended that rare faculty which can see, with com- 
prehending eyes, the reverse of a shield, and that 
still rarer courage which can expose the unfavorable 
aspect to view, without flinching. So every point 
scored against him was frankly acknowledged. 
Giving up advantage after advantage, — even vol- 
unteering admissions which seemed well-nigh fatal 
to his cause, — he moved steadily forward through 
the opening portion of such an argument, like a 
seasoned philosopher conducting some abstract in- 
quiry. There was a savor, too, of passionless logic 
about what he said, that still more suggests the 
ancient scholar. Indeed, his whole bearing, at this 
stage, reminds one of the serene candor and the 
equally placid confidence in the ultimate triumph 
of truth, whereby Thomas Aquinas, greatest among 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 95 

schoolmen, has endeared himself, for all time, to 
those who love honest reasoning. 

Nor was Lincoln's sincerity lost, in his day, upon 
those who were best qualified to appreciate it. The 
judges of the Illinois Supreme Court rated these 
habitual acts of fair play at their true value ; and one 
of them, Justice Koerner, speaking for the whole 
bench, once said: "We always admired his extreme 
fairness in stating his adversary's case as well as his 
own." 14 

But how did the practice impress others? As if 
to answer this query, a well-known newspaper man 
has left some good copy, made many years after the 
event, concerning a certain trial that he reported at 
Chicago, in the autumn of 1857. 

" It was a railroad case," says Colonel Hinton who 
tells the story; "and as I was reading law at the 
time, I soon became interested in the points in- 
volved. I remember thinking as I made my notes 
that the counsel opposing the corporation had a sure 
thing of it. But my attention was soon closely at- 
tracted to the counsel who rose to reply. ' The home- 
liest man I ever saw,' was the thought I had. When 
I heard a judge speak to him as 'Mr. Lincoln,' I re- 
called having heard the name before. A reporter 
present told me that he was from Springfield, and at 
once I remembered the Boston mention of him, and 
my interest became alert. The one Impression I re- 
tain apart from the striking and quaint appearance 
he presented, was the fact that in his opening re- 
marks he seemed to me to be * giving his case away ' 
by the remarkably lucid and vigorous manner in 



96 HONEST ABE 

which by recapitulating the summary of the pre- 
vious argument he presented the argument and law 
of his opponent. With the 'freshness' of a cock- 
sure student, I at once concluded he was a beaten 
man." '"> 

The colonel goes on to relate how " the homeliest 
man" was not "beaten," but that is another story. 
Sticking to our text, we find ourselves wondering 
what Lincoln's clients, generally speaking, thought 
of him, at about this stage in the proceedings. And 
it is not surprising to learn that sometimes they 
"trembled with apprehension" for the verdicts 
which his tactics seemingly endangered. ^^ Nor was 
this feeling of alarm confined to clients. Some of his 
colleagues at the bar, when concerned with him in 
the trying of causes, could never quite accustom 
themselves to sit tranquilly by, while he bestowed 
important admissions on counsel for the other side. 
His liberality toward adverse evidence, that so dis- 
turbed Mr. Whitney, as the reader will remember, 
must have seemed even more reprehensible to such 
associates when it cropped out in the final argument. 

A striking instance of this occurred during the 
famous Rock Island Bridge litigation which, despite 
certain differences in the telling, may have been the 
case that Colonel Hinton reported. The action was 
tried at Chicago, in September, 1857, before the 
United States Circuit Court, the honorable John 
McLean presiding. It had grown out of the clash 
between the boatmen on the Mississippi River and 
the railroad people who maintained a recently 
erected bridge across that stream, from Rock Island, 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 97 

Illinois, to Davenport, Iowa. When the structure 
was planned, several years previous, efforts to place 
legal obstacles in the way of the project had been 
made without success. And upon the completion of 
the undertaking, this quarrel appears to have raged 
more fiercely than ever, until it had culminated in 
the destruction of a steamboat, the Effie Afton, 
which came to grief on piers of the bridge. Her own- 
ers had promptly brought suit for damages. The 
case was entitled, "Hurd et al. vs. The Railroad and 
Bridge Company," but these words meant more 
than met the eye. Behind the litigants themselves 
were arrayed powerful antagonists. The action 
might not incorrectly have been called, "River 
Traffic versus Railroads," or "The Mississippi 
Valley versus The Far West," or "St. Louis versus 
Chicago"; for it involved vital points, on which 
turned the future welfare of all these conflicting 
interests. Their struggle naturally focussed the 
attention of a vast region on the trial, and when 
proceedings began, men from all over the West 
crowded the Federal court-room. 

The Chicago and Rock Island Railroad Company, 
through its attorney, Norman B. Judd, had retained 
Lincoln, among others, as counsel for the defense. 
There was some favorable comment on the skill with 
which he brought out the evidence; but when he dis- 
cussed this evidence, in the closing argument, one 
of his associates, Joseph Knox, was not so pleased. 
In fact, that gentleman became alarmed to such a 
degree over what Lincoln conceded that when court 
adjourned for the day, before the speech was fin- 



98 HONEST ABE 

ished, he despaired of success. His indignation 
found vent in a talk with Judd. 

"Lincoln has lost the case for us," he said. "The 
admissions he made in regard to the currents in the 
Mississippi at Rock Island and Moline will convince 
the court that a bridge at that point will always be a 
serious and constant detriment to navigation on the 
river." 

' ' Wait until you hear the conclusion of his speech , ' ' 
replied Mr. Judd. "You will find his admission is 
a strong point instead of a weak one, and on it he 
will found a strong argument that will satisfy you." ^^ 

So indeed it proved to be. Before he closed, Lin- 
coln did his own side ample justice, and demon- 
strated to a victorious conclusion that, currents or 
no currents, one man has as good a right to cross 
over a river as another has to sail up and down.^^ 

Judd was not the only colleague who appraised 
this method at its full value. Leonard Swett, shar- 
ing with our straightforward advocate the leader- 
ship, as some thought, of the Eighth Circuit, and 
conducting many causes, now with him now against 
him, had learned, when on the opposing side, to be 
wary of gifts from Lincoln's hands. 

"If his adversary," said Swett, "did n't under- 
stand him, he would wake up in a few moments, 
finding he had feared the Greeks too late, and wake 
up to find himself beaten. He was 'wise as a ser- 
pent ' in the trial of a case, but I have got too many 
scars from his blows to certify that he was ' harmless 
as a dove.' When the whole thing is unraveled the 
adversary begins to see that what he was so blandly 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 99 

giving away, was simply what he could n't get and 
keep. By giving away six points and carrying the 
seventh, he carried his case; and, the whole case 
hanging on the seventh, he traded away everything 
which would give him the least aid in carrying that. 
Any one who took Lincoln for a simple-minded man 
would very soon wake up on his back, in a ditch." ^^ 
This rather cynical analysis of the situation is sig- 
nificant. It discloses the controlling factor upon 
which almost every case at bar turns as on a hinge. 
To discern with precision where that pivotal point 
lies may perhaps be deemed the prime requisite for 
a successful pleader. The converse is of almost equal 
importance. "Never plead what you need not," 
said Lincoln, "lest you oblige yourself to prove what 
you cannot." ^° And when, as in his practice, the 
vital issue is pressed home, only after all vulnerable 
positions have been squarely surrendered, the effect 
must seem at times well-nigh irresistible. Even 
courts cannot help yielding something to one who 
yields so much. And what he holds on to naturally 
prevails, with double force, by reason of what he has 
given away. Addressing himself, then, to hearers 
thus favorably disposed, Lincoln's final statement of 
his own side left little need for argument. In fact, 
they said of him, — as has from time to time been 
said of Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice Marshall, 
Daniel Webster, and less distinguished lawyers en- 
dowed with equal power, — his statement of a case 
was worth the argument of another man. For here 
again, the precision, clearness, and veracity of his 
mental operations came into play. He would disen- 



loo HONEST ABE 

tangle a complicated matter step for step, until the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
stood revealed to all. It was as if each successive 
word were set in place, after the manner of Hugh 
Miller's master, the Cromarty mason, who "made 
conscience of every stone he laid." 

Lincoln's conscience withal did double duty. His 
fealty to the cause of justice was not allowed to 
crowd out an ever-present sense of what he owed his 
client. In only rare instances and then, it is true, to 
that client's detriment, as we have seen, did these 
obligations clash. When they harmonized, the ad- 
vocate did not spare himself. Nor did his theory 
concerning the essentials of a case betray him into 
omissions. Making an argument once before one of 
the higher courts, he gave an elaborate history of 
the law governing the matter in question. It was a 
masterly discourse, prepared with much care, but as 
his partner thought, wholly unnecessary. On their 
way home, Mr. Herndon, who tells the story, asked 
Mr. Lincoln why he ''went so far back in the history 
of the law," adding a surmise that the court knew it 
all. 

"That's where you're mistaken," was the instant 
reply. " I dared not trust the case on the presump- 
tion that the court knows everything. In fact, I 
argued it on the presumption that the court did n't 
know anything." ^^ 

There are, sooth to say, judicial decisions which 
almost seem to justify such precautions. And we 
find ourselves wondering whether the speaker knew 
that venerable anecdote of the counsel who, when 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS loi 

interrupted by a wearied Supreme Court Justice 
with the remark, "You must give this court credit 
for knowing something," replied, "That's exactly 
the mistake I made in the court below." 

Lincoln was himself, according to certain col- 
leagues, occasionally stopped from the bench, but 
for quite a different reason. His mere statement of a 
matter sounded so clear and convincing that judges 
would, at times, interpose before he could go on to his 
argument, with some such words as: "If that is the 
case. Brother Lincoln, we will hear the other side." ^^ 

Nor was he less felicitous in putting a winning 
touch to the confidence of juries. When he faced 
them, at last, his lucid, even-handed methods pro- 
duced their strongest effects. "If I can free this 
case," he was wont to say, "from technicalities and 
get it properly swung to the jury, I'll win it." ^^ 
To that end, the essential facts were so cogently pre- 
sented that they became almost self-evident. And 
the jurymen, following a train of thought which re- 
duced simplicity to its lowest terms, easily fancied 
themselves in the speaker's place, as though they, 
not he, were making the statement. His anxiety to 
be right quickened their anxiety to do right. It 
was seemingly their trial, not his; and he conducted 
himself as if he were only assisting them to do their 
duty. Every one of the twelve "free and lawful 
men," even those who were least intelligent, appear 
to have felt this. Indeed, throughout what Lincoln 
said in addressing them, may be discerned a purpose, 
above all things, to impress the truth upon that most 
important of all the personages in a court, the dullest 



102 HONEST ABE 

occupant of the jury-box. And how well he suc- 
ceeded, on the whole, is a matter of common repute. 
Some contemporaries went to the extreme of saying 
— if we may credit one of them — that they could 
not "expect a favorable verdict in any case where 
Lincoln was opposing counsel, as his simple state- 
ments of the facts had more weight with the jury 
than those of the witnesses." ^^ 

Such a result did, it is true, come about in at least 
one instance — the trial of a tramp accused of mur- 
der. No one had seen the deed, but the evidence, 
which proved to be purely circumstantial, pointed 
strongly toward the prisoner. As the crime was of a 
brutal nature, feeling ran high against him. A friend- 
less stranger, in the midst of popular clamor, his 
conviction appeared to be a foregone conclusion; 
and Lincoln, who was appointed to defend, seem- 
ingly made but little headway. He contented him- 
self with eliciting from the witnesses full statements 
of what they saw or knew. Evading nothing, sup- 
pressing nothing, making no attempt to confuse 
those who testified or to present matters other than 
they were, he helped the prosecuting attorney to 
bring out all the facts. When his time came for ad- 
dressing the jury, he called attention to the absence 
of direct evidence. Frankly reviewing all the circum- 
stances, and weighing what seemed to prove the de- 
fendant's guilt with what made for his innocence, he 
concluded in about the following language: "I have 
looked this matter over fully, candidly ; and while I 
concede that the testimony bears against my client, 
I am not sure that he is guilty. Are you?" 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 103 

The prisoner was acquitted, and properly so, for 
some time thereafter the real criminal was brought 
to justice. 

"How different would have been the conduct of 
many lawyers!" exclaimed the late Justice Brewer, 
of the United States Supreme Court, as he told his 
story. "Some would have striven to lead the judge 
into technical errors, with a view to an appeal to a 
higher court. Others would have become hoarse 
in denunciation of witnesses, decrying the lack of 
positive testimony and dwelling on the marvelous 
virtue of a reasonable doubt. The simple, straight- 
forward way of Lincoln, backed by the confidence 
of the jury, won." ^^ 

That combination was hard to beat. Frequent 
repetitions of it gave Lincoln, in time, a reputation 
which seems almost unique. There have been advo- 
cates with more notable gifts of learning and elo- 
quence, than he could command; but few among 
them, if any, moved through our courts with so large 
a measure of esteem. Yet it is going too far to say, 
as Judge Caton did, that "no one ever accused him 
of taking an underhanded or unfair advantage, in 
the whole course of his professional career." ^^ True, 
he was a general favorite on the circuit. His fair, not 
to say generous, tactics made for good feeling; and 
to him, perhaps, least of all that eager company, 
could have been applied the ancient aspersion of the 
lawyer as a brawler for hire. Moreover, the "I am 
holier than thou" pose, whereby the honored coun- 
selor sometimes seeks to place less reputable oppo- 
nents at a disadvantage, was wholly absent from his 



104 HONEST ABE 

demeanor. No practitioners, however low or dis- 
credited, met here with discourtesy. Indeed, unless 
an adversary misbehaved in the particular case on 
trial, Lincoln never uttered a word of personal re- 
proach which might unduly prejudice the jury. 
"Hence," we are told, "the meanest man at the bar 
always paid great deference and respect to him." ^^ 
But he did not wholly escape the penalty of his 
successes. Some colleagues — and they should have 
known better — gave way to jealousy. Those who 
sit in the shadow of the prophet's mantle do not 
always see the prophet. A few opponents were even 
known to question Lincoln's sincerity. His candor 
was in their eyes a cloak for trickery, his unconven- 
tional manner a means of springing surprises on the 
unwary, and his apparent fair dealing a bait for 
luring unsuspecting adversaries to defeat. That an 
attorney smarting under a sense of failure might 
now and then have felt this way is not surprising. 
Fresh from the reading of Mr. Swett's graphic little 
sketch, which left the vanquished one floundering 
"on his back in a ditch," we can appreciate the full 
force of a statement made within recent years by 
Ezra Morton Prince, a Bloomington attorney. Re- 
ferring to these scattering charges of unfairness, Mr. 
Prince, who attended many trials in the old circuit 
days, says: "The truth is that Mr. Lincoln had a 
genius for seeing the real point in a case at once, 
and aiming steadily at it from the beginning of a 
trial to the end. The issue in most cases lies in very 
narrow compass, and the really great lawyer disre- 
gards everything not directly tending to that issue. 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 105 

The mediocre advocate is apt to miss the crucial 
point in his case and is easily diverted with minor 
matters, and when his eyes are opened he is usually 
angry and always surprised. Mr. Lincoln instinc- 
tively saw the kernel of every case at the outset, 
never lost sight of it, and never let it escape the jury. 
That was the only trick I ever saw him play." ^^ 

If anybody knew Abraham Lincoln to do a dis- 
honorable act, during all these busy years in the 
courts, evidence to prove it has not been forthcom- 
ing. And there have been iconoclasts enough at 
work on his record to insure the telling of the story, 
had such an incident taken place. 

One opponent did, it must be said, in the heat of a 
certain famous trial, accuse him of duplicity. The 
case was that of young Quinn Harrison, sometimes 
called " Peachy," arraigned for the murder of Greek 
Grafton, a student in Lincoln's office. While quar- 
reling over some political question, they had come 
to blows, and Grafton, sustaining a knife-wound, 
had died within a few days. The young men, besides 
being close friends, had been connected by marriage. 
Their families were highly regarded. The prisoner's 
people especially enjoyed good repute, and that his 
grandfather was Dr. Peter Gartwright, the noted 
Methodist circuit-rider, added not a little to popular 
sympathy in his behalf. Notwithstanding all this, 
strenuous efforts were made to secure a conviction. 
The regular prosecuting attorney, Amzi McWil- 
liams, was assisted by John M. Palmer and John A. 
McGlernand. The defense had been entrusted to 
Abraham Lincoln, Stephen T. Logan, William H. 



io6 HONEST ABE 

Herndon, and Shelby M. Cullom. Able as the de- 
fendant's counsel were, they achieved but slight 
progress, for a time, in overcoming the strong case 
made out against their client. It was only when 
Lincoln put Harrison's grandfather on the stand 
that the tide seemed to turn. Under his exami- 
ner's sympathetic guidance, the venerable preacher 
evinced how fondly he loved the unfortunate young 
man, and told the story of his own final interview 
with Crafton — a touching scene, in which the dying 
youth charged Cartwright to tell "Peachy" that he 
forgave him. This formed the basis of an appeal for 
mercy, in Lincoln's closing argument. So wrought 
up was the speaker by the pathos of the whole 
affair that he put aside his dislike of such attempts 
to play on the sympathies of juries, and made an 
eloquent plea for a verdict which should not set 
at naught the slain man's act of forgiveness. This 
speech made a profound impression. It had moved 
those who listened, in fact, to a degree which dis- 
quieted the prosecuting attorneys. One of them, as 
he arose to reply, was determined that the effect 
must be counteracted, at all hazards. 

"Well, gentlemen," said he, "you have heard 
Mr. Lincoln — ' Honest Abe Lincoln,' they call 
him, I believe. And I suppose you think you have 
heard the honest truth — or at least that Mr. Lin- 
coln honestly believes what he has told you to be 
the truth. I tell you, he believes no such thing. 
That frank, ingenuous face of his, as you are weak 
enough to suppose, those looks and tones of such 
unsophisticated simplicity, those appeals to your 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 107 

minds and consciences as sworn jurors, are all as- 
sumed for the occasion, gentlemen, — all a mask, 
gentlemen. You have been listening for the last 
hour to an actor, who knows well how to play the 
role of honest seeming, for effect." 

At this moment, amidst breathless stillness, Lin- 
coln stood up. He was deeply moved. It seemed as 
if every line of his gaunt features twitched with 
pain. Facing the speaker he said : ' * You have known 
me for years, and you know that not a word of that 
language can be truthfully applied to me." 

The prosecutor changed color, hesitated a mo- 
ment, and then, his better nature gaining the mas- 
tery, responded with much feeling: "Yes, Mr, Lin- 
coln, I do know it, and I take it all back." 

Many of those who were present could not resist 
the impulse to applaud, as the two men approached 
each other and shook hands. The trial then went on 
to its anticipated conclusion — Harrison's acquittal. ^^ 

On another occasion Lincoln took quite a different 
method of meeting an unfair attack. His opponent 
in a case, while selecting the jury, challenged a man 
because he was acquainted with counsel on the other 
side. Such an objection appears to have been re- 
garded, in those days, as a reflection upon a lawyer's 
honor. So Judge Davis, who was presiding at the 
time, sharply overruled the challenge. Yet when 
Lincoln's turn came to examine the panel, he gravely 
followed the other's lead and asked them, one by 
one, whether they were acquainted with his adver- 
sary. After several had answered in the afffrmative, 
however, the judge interrupted him. 



io8 HONEST ABE 

"Now, Mr. Lincoln," he said severely, "you are 
wasting time. The mere fact that a juror knows 
your opponent does not disquahfy him." 

"No, Your Honor," retorted the advocate; "but 
I am afraid some of the gentlemen may not know 
him, which would place me at a disadvantage." ^^ 

In only one other notable instance, so far as the 
writer's knowledge goes, has Lincoln's integrity at 
the bar been directly questioned. Charges of fabri- 
cating certain important evidence to save his client 
grew out of a sensational episode in the camp- 
meeting murder trial. The case was that of William 
(Duffy) Armstrong indicted for the killing of James 
Preston Metzker, during a brawl near the Salt Creek 
camp-grounds, a few miles from Mason City, on 
the night of Saturday, August 29, 1857. "Duff" 
and " Pres," as the two young men were called, after 
drinking heavily with other wild companions of their 
kind, quarreled. In the fracas which ensued late 
that same night, Armstrong and a friend named 
James Henry Norris, who came to his assistance, 
had, it was alleged, inflicted injuries on Metzker 
that, several days later, proved to be fatal. A true 
bill for murder had been found against both men. 
And Norris, brought first to trial, at Havana in 
Mason County, had, upon a verdict of manslaughter, 
gone to prison for eight years. His comrade's case 
looked darker still. Public sentiment condemned 
"Duff" out of hand; and from all sides came de- 
mands that the law should be enforced against him 
in its utmost rigor. Then, as if to make matters 
worse, his father died. The widowed mother, strug- 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 109 

gllng alone for her boy's life, managed to secure the 
services of Walker and Lacey, local lawyers at Ha- 
vana; but they could hold forth only slender pros- 
pects of success. At this juncture news of the trou- 
ble reached Lincoln. Occupied though he was, by 
that time, over the affairs of an extensive practice 
and the demands of a growing political leadership, 
this tragedy claimed his attention. He appears to 
have been deeply moved by the father's death, as 
well as by the son's peril. For that father was the 
Jack Armstrong of Clary's Grove fame, with whom 
he had wrestled and chummed during the by-gone 
New Salem days; that mother was the Aunt Han- 
nah, in whose kitchen he had many a time been 
made welcome; and her baby, which he had rocked 
to sleep while she cooked him a meal, was the pris- 
oner who, now arrived at manhood's estate, lay in 
jail awaiting trial for a capital crime. In this, her 
hour of dire need, the poor woman had naturally 
turned to their old friend. Going to his office at 
Springfield, she told the whole distressing story, and 
received instant promise of help. 

"Abe," said Hannah, as one of her sons relates, 
"I can't pay you much money or money of any 
account, but I can pay you a little." 

To which he replied: "You do not need to pay 
me a cent, for my services are free to the family as 
long as I live." ^^ 

So it happened that when the trial, by a change of 
venue, opened the following spring before Justice 
James Harriott, at Beardstown, in the less preju- 
diced atmosphere of Cass County, Lincoln led for 



no HONEST ABE 

the defense. He came into court with faith in his 
client. According to "Duff's" version of the affair, 
Metzker had been the aggressor, and the fight, as 
far as these two were concerned, had been with their 
bare fists only. Yet how could the jury be convinced 
of this? Such evidence, indeed, as was presented 
against Armstrong at the outset did not appear to 
be very damaging; but when the prosecution called 
its principal witness, Charles Allen, a painter from 
Petersburg, matters became serious. He testified 
that he saw the defendant strike Metzker on the 
head with a slung-shot. Under cross-examination, 
Allen averred that the assault occurred at about 
eleven o'clock in the night. When asked to explain 
how, despite the lateness of the hour, he could so 
distinctly have seen what took place, the witness 
stated that there was a bright moon, nearly full, 
and "about in the same place that the sun would be 
at ten o'clock in the morning." This answer, to use 
the language of the day, apparently put the hang- 
man's noose around Armstrong's neck. In the opin- 
ion of his alert counsel however, it was just what 
undid that ghastly cravat. For, profiting by the 
testimony given at previous hearings, Lincoln had 
prepared to meet that very situation. On the morn- 
ing of the trial he had placed in the keeping of Sheriff 
James A. Dick an almanac — probably Goudy's — 
for the year of the homicide. This document was 
now produced by that officer, at the request of the 
defense, and put in evidence. It proved, as Lincoln 
pointed out, that on the night in question the moon 
had but slightly passed the first quarter, that it gave 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS in 

practically no light at eleven o'clock, and that its 
computed time for setting was at about midnight. ^^ 
The effect of this announcement seemed almost 
magical. At one stroke of the master hand, Allen's 
spurious moonshine had turned into a lightning 
flash, by which the weakness of the prosecution 
stood revealed. There was an immediate revulsion 
of feeling in the prisoner's favor. His counsel were 
as quick to seize upon the lucky turn. Closing for 
the defense, Mr. Lincoln addressed the jury in words 
of which his associate, Mr. Walker, afterwards said, 
"A more powerful and eloquent speech never, in my 
opinion, fell from the lips of man." The perjured 
testimony, as well as the discrepancies in the evi- 
dence, were dwelt upon by the speaker with tell- 
ing effect. So moved was he, moreover, by his 
ancient gratitude to "Duff's" parents, and by 
his own manifest belief in the young man's inno- 
cence of willful murder, that the tears which blurred 
his eyes as he spoke, no less than the sympathetic 
earnestness of his appeal, touched responsive chords 
among the wrought-up jurymen. They did not de- 
liberate long. When they came in with their verdict, 
the foreman said "not guilty," and this remarkable 
case was at an end. 

The case, indeed, was at an end, but the talk 
about it was not. Lincoln's dramatic introduction of 
that almanac appears especially to have stimulated 
the gossip, which took many forms, until out of it 
all in some unaccountable way emerged a strange 
canard. According to this tale he had tricked prose- 
cutors, court, and jury by palming off on them, as of 



112 HONEST ABE 

the year when the homicide took place, a calendar of 
some previous year. The obvious reply to this 
charge is that there would have been no reason 
whatever for such a piece of rascality. An almanac 
dated 1857 bears out — as any one may satisfy 
himself at his leisure — Lincoln's contention to the 
letter, and he could not have bettered his case 
by fraudulently using one for another year. Of 
course, those who repeated the story did not take 
the trouble to consult calendars, but a moment's 
reflection might have warned them of its absurdity. 
They should have known that an experienced law- 
yer, whose adherence to the highest Ideals of his 
profession had by this time passed into a by- word, 
would hardly have jeopardized a cherished reputa- 
tion, to say nothing of his standing as a public man, 
by stooping to any device at once so dishonorable 
and so futile. For it is not to be credited that an 
exhibit of such importance could pass through the 
hands of shrewd opponents, as well as those of judge 
and jurymen, without the closest scrutiny. This 
scrutiny did, in fact, take place. 

How thorough it was may be gathered from the 
recollections of Judge Abram Bergen, who happened 
to be present. Attending the trial shortly after his 
admission to practice, he sat within the bar behind 
both groups of counsel engaged in the case, and 
watched what took place with the acute attention of 
a young lawyer studying the tactics of distinguished 
elders. This apparently credible witness, touching 
on the accusation of fraud, said: — 

"When Lincoln finally called for the almanac he 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 113 

exhibited it to the opposing lawyers, read from it, 
and then caused it to be handed to members of the 
jury for their inspection. I heard two of the attor- 
neys for the State, in whispered consultation, raise 
the question as to the correctness of the almanac, 
and they ended the conference by sending to the 
office of the clerk of the court for another. The mes- 
senger soon returned with the statement that there 
was no almanac of 1857 in the office. It will be re- 
membered that the trial occurred in 1858 for a trans- 
action in 1857. In the Presidential campaign soon 
following, it was even charged that Lincoln must 
have gone around and purloined all the almanacs 
in the court-house. However, I well remember that 
another almanac was procured from the office of 
Probate Judge Arenz, in the same building. It was 
brought to the prosecuting attorneys, who examined 
it, and compared it with the one introduced by Mr. 
Lincoln, and found that they substantially agreed, 
although it was at first intimated by the State's 
attorneys that they had found some slight differ- 
ence. 

"All this I personally saw and heard, and it is as 
distinct in my memory as if it had occurred but yes- 
terday. No intimation was made, so far as I knew, 
that there was any fraud in the use of the almanac 
until two years afterwards, when Lincoln was the 
nominee of the Republican Party for the Presidency. 
In that year, i860, while in the mountains of south- 
ern Oregon, I saw in a Democratic newspaper, pub- 
lished at St. Louis, an article personally abusive of 
Mr. Lincoln, stating that he was no statesman and 



114 HONEST ABE 

only a third-rate lawyer ; and to prove the deceptive 
and dishonest nature of the candidate, the same pa- 
per printed an indefinite affidavit of one of the jurors 
who had helped to acquit Armstrong, to the effect 
that Mr. Lincoln had made fraudulent use of the 
almanac on the trial. For some inexplicable reason 
he failed to call this pretended knowledge to the 
attention of the other jurors at the time of the trial ; 
but very promptly joined in the verdict of acquit- 
tal, and waited two years before giving publicity to 
what would at the proper time have been a very 
important piece of information. 

"Soon after this, I saw an affidavit made by Mil- 
ton Logan, the foreman of the jury, that he person- 
ally examined the almanac when it was delivered to 
the jury, and particularly noticed that it was for the 
year 1857, the year of the homicide. I had a better 
opportunity than any of the jurors to see and hear 
all that was publicly and privately done and said 
by the attorneys on both sides, and know that the 
almanacs of 1857, now preserved in the historical 
and other public libraries, sustain and prove to the 
minute all that was claimed by Mr. Lincoln on that 
trial, as to the rising and setting of the moon; al- 
though my best recollection is that the hour of the 
crime was claimed to be about midnight, instead of 
eleven o'clock, as stated in many of the books. I do 
not know that this calumny was ever called to Mr. 
Lincoln's attention, or if it was that he ever took the 
trouble to contradict it. He might well have pur- 
sued his regular habit of ignoring such things. If his 
public and private conduct and his reputation as a 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 115 

citizen and lawyer were not sufficient to refute the 
charges, his personal denial would have been of little 
more avail." ^^ 

Judge Bergen may be right. Perhaps, in fact, no 
proofs — not even His Honor's own lucid state- 
ments, sustained by the almanac itself — have vigor 
enough to overtake all the current versions of this 
absurd tale and retire them from circulation. In 
the region of the old Eighth Judicial Circuit, they 
are still passed around with variations to suit each 
teller's fancy; the press of the country helps them 
along with a fresh start now and then ; while at least 
one law book — a treatise, strange to say, on 
"Facts" — throws an air of seeming authenticity 
over the whole foolish business, in an indexed no^te 
which relates how Lincoln once "procured an acquit- 
tal by a fraud." ^^ Slander they say can travel 
around the world before Denial has had time to 
draw on his boots. This particular offender has been 
overtaken, again and again; but the story, in some 
guise, goes merrily on. It evidently belongs among 
those popular myths that thrive on refutation. To 
disprove them is easy enough; to destroy them, 
as experience abundantly shows, is quite another 
matter. Yet "hope springs eternal in the human 
breast"; and one more lover of historic justice here 
tries what may be achieved by turning the search- 
light of truth full upon the discrepant features of 
this hoary falsehood. ^^ 

So much for the few specific instances in which 
doubts have been publicly cast on Lincoln's high 
ideals of practice. As to the rest, those ideals appar- 



ii6 HONEST ABE 

ently suffered but little let-down under all the press 
and stress of his busy years at the Illinois bar. Yet 
he was not immaculate. A thoroughly human man, 
loyal to his clients and fond of his friends, he may 
have swerved ever so slightly to the right or the left 
in their behalf, when no breach of truth or law was 
involved. As often happens, moreover, with men 
of this type he appears to have been in such cases 
his own severest censor. And when a student once 
asked him whether the legal profession could stand 
the test, all in all, of the golden rule, he winced. It 
happened while they were walking together one 
afternoon after a trying day in court. The young 
man, Ralph Emerson by name, was the son of a rev- 
erend instructor in Andover Theological Seminary, 
and some things that he had seen Western lawyers 
do disturbed the poise of his New England con- 
science. If such acts were necessary at the bar, this 
would, he feared, be no career for him. In his per- 
plexity the youth determined to consult the eminent 
lawyer who walked by his side. Turning suddenly 
to him, Emerson said: — 

"Mr. Lincoln, I want to ask you a question. Is it 
possible for a man to practice law and always do by 
others as he would be done by?" 

Lincoln's head dropped upon his breast. He 
walked on in silence for a long time. Then came a 
heavy sigh, and when he did finally speak, it was 
about another matter. 

"I had my answer," adds Mr. Emerson, recalling 
the incident. "That walk turned the course of my 
life." 36 



^ PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 117 

Precisely what this little scene signified is not easy 
to determine; but that it was of weighty import 
those who have progressed thus far with us in the 
study of Lincoln's character will hardly believe. 
Still, the episode, however vague and inconclusive, 
must not be omitted from any appraisement of the 
man's honesty. Perhaps one explanation of that 
profound sigh is to be sought among occasional vic- 
tories, won by him on technicalities, rather than on 
their merits. And then, again, a too sensitive mem- 
ory may, at the moment, have put Lincoln in mind 
of certain acts which, while they hardly measured 
up to the standard set by the Golden Rule, were 
not by any means dishonorable. They had their 
origin, to some extent, in his distaste for trivial liti- 
gation, but still more, in his disapproval of those 
"contentious suits which," a great Lord Chancellor 
long ago declared, "ought to be spewed out, as the 
surfeit of courts." How Lincoln dissuaded his own 
clients from bringing actions of this kind has already 
been set forth. It may be needless to add that when 
situations were reversed, and they were the objects 
of such prosecutions by others, he willingly appeared 
in their behalf. Then woe to the plaintiffs if the 
facts afforded but the slightest scope for the play 
of his peculiar humor! Under his droll treatment, 
a petty cause, though not without merit, might 
become so ridiculous as to leave the claimant in a 
plight, from which nothing but an appeal to that 
same beneficent rule of ethical conduct could have 
saved him. Indeed, by these very tactics, Lincoln is 
said to have laughed more jury cases out of court 



ii8 HONEST ABE 

than any other attorney on the circuit. How he went 
about it was well illustrated in a trial recalled by 
Judge Scott, who tells this story concerning the affair : 
"A young lawyer had brought an action in tres- 
pass to recover damages done to his client's growing 
crops by defendant's hogs. The right of action, un- 
der the law of Illinois, as it was then, depended on 
the fact whether plaintiff's fence was sufficient to 
turn ordinary stock. There was some little conflict 
in the evidence on that question, but the weight 
of the testimony was decidedly in favor of plaintiff 
and sustained beyond all doubt his cause of action. 
Mr. Lincoln appeared for defendant. There was no 
controversy as to the damage done by defendant's 
stock. The only thing in the case that could possibly 
admit of any discussion was the condition of plain- 
tiff's fence; and as the testimony on that question 
seemed to be in favor of plaintiff, and as the sum 
involved was little in amount, Mr. Lincoln did not 
deem it necessary to argue the case seriously. But 
by way of saying something in behalf of his client, 
he told a little story about a fence that was so 
crooked that when a hog went through an opening 
in it, invariably it came out on the same side from 
whence it started. His description of the confused 
look of the hog after several times going through the 
fence and still finding itself on the side from which 
it had started, was a humorous specimen of the best 
story-telling. The effect was to make plaintiff's case 
appear ridiculous. And while Mr. Lincoln did not 
attempt to apply the story to the case, the jury 
seemed to think it had some kind of application to 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 119 

the fence in controversy, — otherwise he would not 
have told it, — and shortly returned a verdict for 
the defendant." " 

There are other accounts of similar achievements. 
Perhaps the most commonly known instance was 
that which Lincoln himself took pleasure in relating. 
According to one version, — for there are several, — 
this is how he told it : — 

"I was retained in the defense of a man charged 
before a justice of the peace with assault and bat- 
tery. It was in the country, and when I got to the 
place of trial I found the whole neighborhood ex- 
cited, and the feeling was strong against my client. 
I saw the only way was to get up a laugh and get the 
people in a good humor. It turned out that the pros- 
ecuting witness was talkative. He described the 
fight at great length, — how they fought over a 
field, now by the barn, again down to the creek, and 
over it, and so on. I asked him, on cross-examina- 
tion, how large that field was. He said it was ten 
acres. He knew it was, for he and some one else had 
stepped it off with a pole. 'Well, then,' I inquired, 
'was not that the smallest crap of a fight you have 
ever seen raised off of ten acres?' The hit took. 
The laughter was uproarious, and in half an hour the 
prosecuting witness was retreating amid the jeers of 
the crowd." ^^ 

There is no more effectual way to dispose of a 
trifling suit, and Lincoln's ready wit was apparently 
equal to all such demands. Yet his sallies, telling 
as they were, left no stings rankling in the memory 
of unfortunate victims. Those who emerged beaten 



120 HONEST ABE 

from these encounters were conscious of a certain 
quaint good humor in the man's demeanor that 
disarmed resentment. 

He was, however, not so genial when it came to 
another type of Htigants — the dishonest ones. 
They met, in fact, with a very different kind of 
treatment. For Lincoln saw nothing amusing in 
their devices, and as they could not be laughed out 
of court, his efforts were directed toward shaming 
them out. An occurrence of this nature took place 
at Tremont, in 1847, during the spring term of the 
Tazewell County Court. It appears that an old 
farmer named Case had sold what was called a 
"prairie team," comprising several yoke of oxen and 
a plough, to two young men known as the Snow 
boys. They had given their joint note in settlement, 
but when it became due they had refused to pay. 
The account was placed in Lincoln's hands for col- 
lection, and he promptly brought suit. When the 
case came to trial, this note, as well as the purchase 
of a team, was not denied by the lawyer who ap- 
peared for the defendants. He set up the plea of 
infancy, however, and offered to prove that both 
brothers were under twenty-one years of age at the 
time they signed the note. This fact, it was further- 
more claimed, the plaintiff knew when the transac- 
tion took place. To all of which Lincoln quietly 
said : "Yes, I guess that is true, and we will admit it." 

Things looked bad for farmer Case. "What!" 
thought a by-stander, — the teller of the story, — 
"is this good old man, who confided in these boys, to 
be wronged in this way, and even his counsel, Mr. 
Lincoln, to submit in silence!" 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 121 

After the principle of law that a minor may avoid 
his contracts had been duly cited, Judge Treat who 
presided, inquired: — 

"Is there a count in the declaration for oxen and 
plow, sold and delivered?" 

"Yes," answered Lincoln, "and I have only two 
or three questions to ask the witness." 

Addressing the men who had been called to prove 
the ages of the defendants, he asked : — 

"Where is that prairie team now?" 

"On the farm of the Snow boys," was his answer. 

"Have you seen any one breaking prairie with it, 
lately?" 

"Yes, the Snow boys were breaking up with it, 
last week." 

"How old are the boys now?" 

"One is a little over twenty-one, and the other 
near twenty-three." 

"That is all," said Lincoln. 

Arising slowly, when the time came for his closing 
argument, and standing in an awkward, half-erect 
attitude, he began : — 

"Gentlemen of the jury, are you willing to allow 
these boys to begin life with this shame and disgrace 
attached to their character? If you are, I am not. 
The best judge of human character that ever wrote, 
has left these immortal words for all of us to ponder: 

" * Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 

Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing; 
'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands; 
But he that filches from me my good name, 
Robs me of that which not enriches him, 
And makes me poor indeed.' " 



122 HONEST ABE 

Then drawing himself up to his full height, and 
looking down upon the defendants as if with the 
compassion of an older brother, while his long right 
arm was extended toward their attorney, he con- 
tinued : — 

"Gentlemen, these boys never would have tried 
to cheat old farmer Case out of these oxen and that 
plow, but for the advice of counsel. It was bad ad- 
vice — bad in morals and bad in law. The law never 
sanctions cheating, and a lawyer must be very smart 
indeed to twist it so that it will seem to do so. The 
judge will tell you, what your own sense of justice 
has already told you, that these Snow boys, if they 
were mean enough to plead the baby act, when they 
came to be men should have taken the oxen and 
plow back. They cannot go back on their contract, 
and also keep what the note was given for." 

When Lincoln concluded with the words, "And 
now, gentlemen, you have it in your power to set 
these boys right before the world," — he almost 
seemed to be pleading for the misguided young men 
rather than for his own client. So it impressed the 
Snows themselves. Whatever their technical rights 
may have been, they agreed with his view, as well 
as with the reputed opinion of the jury, that the 
account ought to be paid. And paid it was.^^ 

Whether all the circumstances attending this 
affair warranted Mr. Lincoln's severe arraignment of 
the defendants' counsel raises a nice point in pro- 
fessional ethics. Debts, as we know, may sometimes 
be barred by the law of infancy, still oftener by 
statutes of limitation. The debtors in such cases 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 123 

have been provided with legal defenses behind 
which honorable men, however, disdain, as a rule, to 
seek refuge. They realize that though these barriers 
shut creditors off from recovering on certain kinds 
of claims, the debts themselves remain unpaid ; and 
that acts which are intrinsically wrong cannot be 
made right, however they may be sanctioned by 
law or custom. Still, if clients insist on availing 
themselves of such advantages, their attorneys are 
bound, in the judgment of not a few high-minded 
lawyers, to interpose the required pleas. So punc- 
tilious a practitioner as Horace Binney, the distin- 
guished Philadelphian, whose conceptions of duty 
have already served us with some exalted standards, 
took this view. He once conducted the defense, it is 
said, in the trial of a certain action on a promissory 
note. His attempt to prove a set-off having failed, 
he arose and said, with an expression of intense scorn : 
"My client commands me to plead the statute of 
limitations." 

This implied rebuke was not lost on the defendant. 
He quickly withdrew his plea, and paid, as did those 
abashed brothers, the contested note.^° It is inter- 
esting to observe that here again the Western law- 
yer measured up to the lofty principles of his re- 
fined Eastern brother, and might, if confronted by a 
similar demand, have gone even a step beyond him.^^ 

Where injustice was to be headed off, Lincoln 
never stopped halfway. His honesty became mili- 
tant. "He hated wrong and oppression every- 
where," as Judge Davis declared ; "and many a man 
whose fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in 



124 HONEST ABE 

a court of justice has writhed under his terrific in- 
dignation and rebukes." "^^ These onslaughts appear 
to have been especially severe when the strong had 
robbed the weak or taken advantage of the unfor- 
tunate. One typical instance was that of a pension 
agent named Wright, against whom Lincoln brought 
suit to recover money wrongfully withheld from the 
widow of a Revolutionary soldier. The claim as col- 
lected amounted to about four hundred dollars, of 
which the go-between had retained one half. This 
was, of course, an exorbitant fee; but the friendless 
pensioner, bent and crippled with age, seemed to be 
at the fellow's mercy. He certainly expected no re- 
sistance from the old lady. Finding her way, how- 
ever, one day into the office of Lincoln and Herndon, 
she told the whole sordid story. It aroused the 
instant sympathy of the senior partner. He called, 
without loss of time, on the agent to demand a fair 
settlement; and when this was refused, he as 
promptly began an action. What ensued is best told 
in his associate's own words. 

"The day before the trial," writes Mr. Herndon, 
"I hunted up for Lincoln, at his request, a history 
of the Revolutionary War, of which he read a good 
portion. He told me to remain during the trial until 
I had heard his address to the jury. 'For,* said he, 
'I am going to skin Wright, and get that money 
back.* The only witness we introduced was the old 
lady, who through her tears told her story. In his 
speech to the jury, Lincoln recounted the causes 
leading to the outbreak of the Revolutionary strug- 
gle, and then drew a vivid picture of the hardships of 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 125 

Valley Forge, describing with minuteness the men, 
barefooted and with bleeding feet, creeping over the 
ice.^^ As he reached that point in his speech wherein 
he narrated the hardened action of the defendant 
in fleecing the old woman of her pension, his eyes 
flashed, and throwing aside his handkerchief, which 
he held in his right hand, he fairly launched into 
him. His speech for the next five or ten minutes 
justified the declaration of Davis, that he was 'hurt- 
ful in denunciation and merciless in castigation.' 

"There was no rule of court to restrain him in his 
argument, and I never, either on the stump or on 
other occasions in court, saw him so wrought. Be- 
fore he closed, he drew an ideal picture of the plain- 
tiff's husband, the deceased soldier, parting with his 
wife at the threshold of their home, and kissing their 
little babe in the cradle, as he started for the war. 
'Time rolls by,' he said, in conclusion. 'The heroes 
of '76 have passed away, and are encamped on the 
other shore. The soldier has gone to rest, and now, 
crippled, blinded, and broken, his widow comes to 
you and to me, gentlemen of the jury, to right her 
wrongs. She was not always thus. She was once 
a beautiful young woman. Her step was as elastic, 
her face as fair, and her voice as sweet as any that 
rang in the mountains of old Virginia. But now she 
is poor and defenseless. Out here on the prairies of 
Illinois, many hundreds of miles away from the 
scenes of her childhood, she appeals to us, who enjoy 
the privileges achieved for us by the patriots of the 
Revolution, for our sympathetic aid and manly 
protection. All I ask is, shall we befriend her? ' 



126 HONEST ABE 

"The speech made the desired impression on the 
jury. Half of them were in tears, while the defend- 
ant sat in the court-room, drawn up and writhing 
under the fire of Lincoln's fierce invective. The jury 
returned a verdict in our favor for every cent we 
demanded. Lincoln was so much interested in the 
old lady that he became her surety for costs, paid 
her way home, and her hotel bill while she was in 
Springfield. When the judgment was paid we re- 
mitted the proceeds to her and made no charge for 
our services." '^^ 

Some of the finest traditions known to the legal 
profession had been observed in this case. St. Ives 
himself, "Advocate of the Poor" and patron of law- 
yers, might have held such a brief. We can fancy 
him, standing at the bar of the Springfield court, 
scroll in hand as he is sometimes pictured, speaking 
for the poor widow ; but whether that scroll would 
have contained notes like those that Lincoln jotted 
down for the argument may perhaps be questioned. 
They read: "No contract. — Not professional ser- 
vices. — Unreasonable charge. — Money retained by 
Deft not given by Pl'ff. — Revolutionary War. — 
Describe Valley Forge privations. — Ice. — Soldiers' 
bleeding feet. — Pl'ff's husband. — Soldier leaving 
home for army. — Skin Deft. — Close." 

And yet how could any true champion — inspired 
saint or just plain lawyer — have kept his hands off 
that defendant ! Nothing but a flaying appears to 
meet the needs of the occasion. Even your gentle, 
courteous, sympathetic soul like Lincoln's, alert to 
the conflict between right and wrong, is stirred by 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 127 

such meanness to its very depths. Love of justice 
then flames into hatred of injustice. The patient 
pleader becomes the masterful prosecutor. In fact, 
the better the man, the fiercer grows his rage. 
Wielding a scourge of whipcord and striking home, 
he drives the object of his contempt in hot anger 
before him. Nor is he at that moment a respecter 
of persons. Certainly Lincoln was not. The wrath 
with which he bore down from time to time, as we 
have seen, on unprincipled litigants, witnesses, and 
attorneys did not stop there. Misconduct on the 
bench incensed him still more. If the judge before 
whom he was trying a cause persistently attempted 
to be unfair, serious friction ensued; and the defer- 
ence with which even adverse rulings were custom- 
arily received, gave way at last to an outburst of 
indignation. "In such cases," writes Mr. Herndon 
of his associate, "he was the most fearless man I ever 
knew." 

Describing a remarkable encounter which oc- 
curred during the Harrison murder trial, between 
Mr. Lincoln and Judge E. J. Rice, our junior partner 
relates how the presiding magistrate repeatedly 
ruled against counsel for the defense in such a way 
as to convince them that he was prejudiced. 

"Finally," the narrator goes on to say, "a very 
material question — in fact, one around which the 
entire case seemed to revolve — came up, and again 
the court ruled adversely. The prosecution was jubi- 
lant, and Lincoln, seeing defeat certain unless he 
recovered his ground, grew very despondent. The 
notion crept into his head that the court's rulings, 



128 HONEST ABE 

which were absurd and almost spiteful, were aimed 
at him, and this angered him beyond reason. He 
told me of his feelings at dinner, and said, *I have 
determined to crowd the court to the wall and regain 
my position before night.' From that time forward 
it was interesting to watch him. At the reassembling 
of court he arose to read a few authorities in support 
of his position. In his comments he kept within the 
bounds of propriety just far enough to avoid a repri- 
mand for contempt of court. He characterized the 
continued rulings against him as not only unjust but 
foolish; and, figuratively speaking, he peeled the 
court from head to foot. I shall never forget the 
scene. Lincoln had the crowd, a portion of the bar, 
and the jury with him. He knew that fact, and it, 
together with the belief that injustice had been done 
him, nerved him to a feeling of desperation. He was 
wrought up to the point of madness. When a man 
of large heart and head is wrought up and mad, as 
the old adage runs, ' he 's mad all over.' Lincoln had 
studied up the points involved, but knowing full 
well the calibre of the judge, relied mostly on the 
moral effect of his personal bearing and influence. 
He was alternately furious and eloquent, pursuing 
the court with broad facts and pointed inquiries, in 
marked and rapid succession. . . . The prosecution 
endeavored to break him down or even 'head him 
off,' but all to no purpose. His masterly arraignment 
of law and facts had so effectually badgered the 
judge that, strange as it may seem, he pretended to 
see the error in his former position, and finally re- 
versed his decision in Lincoln's favor. The latter 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS 129 

saw his triumph, and surveyed a situation of which 
he was the master. His client was acquitted, and he 
had swept the field." ^^ 

This appears to have been one of the great advo- 
cate's last important victories at the bar. It forms, 
in certain respects, a fitting climax to his legal career. 
For the admirable honesty of word and act with 
which he started out would hardly have carried him 
far, had they not been reinforced betimes by the 
wisdom that comes to the sincere truth-seeker alone, 
and by the courage that is born of truth's fairest 
offspring — an abiding love of justice. Looking 
back over the scenes of his labors, we become aware, 
despite their commonplace settings, of something 
akin to chivalry. They recall, as it were, those epic 
days when disinterested zeal inspired, or was thought 
to inspire, chevalier and barrister alike. No coun- 
selor of old, who took on himself a knightly obliga- 
tion to plead the cause of the defenseless, could have 
acquitted himself, all in all, more nobly. Faithful to 
his ideals through many temptations, yet free from 
self-complacency; chivalrous to his adversaries, yet 
striking hard blows for the cause in which he was 
enlisted ; afraid to make a false plea, yet not afraid of 
a false judge, — homely, unassuming Abraham Lin- 
coln rode over the circuit in much the same spirit as 
quickened the knight errant on his ancient journey- 
ings. No paladin of the law, at least in his day, bore 
himself more gallantly. None seemed to do more 
toward conferring a practical, latter-day meaning 
on Bayard's .notto, "Without fear and without 
reproach." 



CHAPTER IV 

DOLLARS AND CENTS 

THE love of money never twined its sinister 
roots around the heart of Abraham Lincoln. 
He was wholly free of any desire to amass riches, nor 
could he understand why others should be eager to 
do so. The mere piling up of possessions seemed to 
him unworthy of an able man's ambition, and the 
benevolence which manifests itself in grinding the 
faces of many fellow-beings, so as to acquire a for- 
tune for a few public benefactions, hardly appealed 
to one whose humanity took the form of honest, 
kindly abnegation toward all those with whom he 
came in contact. Pecuniary rewards, therefore, oc- 
cupied a minor place among his incentives to ac- 
tion. In fact, when there was an end to be achieved, 
he became so engrossed over the work which should 
bring it about that not much attention was given to 
the pay. Although his faculties usually worked in 
striking harmony with one another, the harmony of 
thrift, whereby a man can perform a good action 
and, as the phrase goes, make a good thing out of it 
at the same time, was foreign to his nature. He 
appears to have been utterly lacking in the rather 
commonplace talent for transmuting people's neces- 
sities into comfortable revenues. His whimsical hu- 
mor once defined wealth to be "simply a superfluity 
of what we don't need"; and his frankness, at an- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 131 

other time, led him to say: "I don't know anything 
about money. I never had enough of my own to fret 
me." 

How this condition came about, we have already, 
in a measure, seen. What Lincoln learned of busi- 
ness, at the outset, from his luckless father, from the 
ill-regulated Off ut, and the dissipated Berry, did not 
carry him far on the road to fortune. Indeed, he can 
hardly be said to have made a fair start toward that 
delectable goal. To all appearances, the stuff which 
passes, as Mowgli says, "from hand to hand and 
never grows warmer," was slow in coming his way; 
and what little did reach him rarely remained long 
enough to allow a test for heat or cold. Where 
money is concerned, some men are sponges, some are 
sieves. 

One of this man's first large coins that he earned 
for himself, by a single piece of work, passed through 
his fingers with ominous celerity. It happened in 
this way. While engaged on a voyage, during the 
youthful river days, — he was about eighteen years 
old at the time, — Lincoln stood near the water's 
edge as a steamboat came in sight. Relating what 
followed to some friends many years later, he ex- 
plained that there were usually no wharves for large 
boats along the shores of the Western rivers, and 
that it was customary for passengers to board the 
vessels, as best they could, in mid-stream. 

"I was contemplating my new flatboat," the 
speaker continued, "and wondering whether I could 
make it stronger or improve it in any particular, 
when two men came down to the shore in carriages 



132 HONEST ABE 

with trunks, and looking at the different boats sin- 
gled out mine, and asked, 'Who owns this?' I an- 
swered, somewhat modestly, *I do.' 'Will you,* 
said one of them, ' take us and our trunks out to the 
steamer?' 'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to 
have the chance of earning something. I supposed 
that each of them would give me two or three bits. 
The trunks were put on my flatboat, the passengers 
seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled them 
out to the steamboat. They got on board, and I 
lifted up their heavy trunks, and put them on deck. 
The steamer was about to put on steam again, when 
I called out that they had forgotten to pay me. Each 
of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar, 
and threw it on the floor of my boat. I could scarcely 
believe my eyes as I picked up the money. Gentle- 
men, you may think it was a very little thing, and in 
these days it seems to me a trifle ; but it was a most 
important incident in my life. I could scarcely 
credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less 
than a day — that by honest work I had earned a 
dollar. The world seemed wider and fairer before 
me. I was a more hopeful and confident being from 
that time." ^ 

But the sequel, as Lincoln told it on another occa- 
sion, sounds less inspiring. For while playing with 
the coins after the steamboat had departed, he 
dropped one of the pieces overboard. "I can see the 
quivering and shining of that half-dollar yet," the 
narrator thoughtfully added, "as in the quick cur- 
rent it went down the stream, and sank from my 
sight forever." ^ 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 133 

This incident was typical of the brief but inglori- 
ous business career which followed. In a certain 
sense Lincoln's commercial life may be said to have 
begun with the fiasco of the lost fare, and to have 
closed about seven years thereafter, even more dis- 
astrously, as the reader will remember, under the 
cloud of "the national debt." During that period he 
experienced, from all accounts, few if any of the joys 
found by the smug trader in the give-and-take of 
barter. 

Nor did he, while pursuing his next occupation as 
a surveyor, evince any livelier appreciation of the 
opportunities for speculation which presented them- 
selves on every side. Promising town-sites or fertile 
quarter-sections interested him only so far as they 
afforded the employment whereby he earned his 
daily bread. For greed of land, like greed of money, 
had no place in the man's make-up. He regarded 
with kindly toleration, however, the struggles of in- 
vestors who scrambled after title-deeds. Yet if their 
activities took a dishonest turn, his contempt for the 
offenders was keener than that which Christian is 
said to have visited upon the pupils of Mr. Gripe- 
man. In the ancient allegory those worthies were 
dismissed with a reprimand ; but their successors, in 
this latter-day narrative, did not, on certain occa- 
sions at least, escape so easily. 

"Land-sharks," or "land-grabbers," as they have 
been variously called, should be rated among Lin- 
coln's pet aversions. From the time of his admission 
to the bar, he lost no opportunity of exposing their 
rascalities and of protecting their victims. Many a 



134 HONEST ABE 

poor settler, struggling to save the homestead from 
blackmailers, who too often infested the govern- 
ment land-offices, would have fared badly if it had 
not been for this man's sympathetic help. What he 
managed to do for the pioneers when so beset, took 
well-nigh as many forms as did the various kinds of 
dangers which threatened them. These services, in 
fact, ranged all the way from the giving of legal aid 
to the lending of a horse. 

It is related that one spring morning, as some of 
the lawyers on the Eighth Judicial Circuit were rid- 
ing leisurely toward Springfield, from the West, they 
were overtaken by a traveler who was hurrying in 
the same direction. His desperate efforts to quicken 
the pace of the stumbling, mud-flecked animal 
which he bestrode, and the appearance in the dis- 
tance of another horseman, evidently in pursuit, told 
their own story. Such a scene was not unfamiliar to 
the little cavalcade of attorneys. They recognized 
in the first rider a home-maker, racing against time, 
with perhaps his final payment, to the land-office; 
and in the second, a home-wrecker pushing forward, 
no less eagerly, to take advantage of a possible de- 
fault. For if by a certain hour the settler should fail 
to reach his goal, the property on which he had spent 
much toil as well as money would be forfeited, the 
claim would be reopened, and his pursuer, or any one 
else, might become the owner. All this passed, like a 
flash, through the mind of at least one lawyer in the 
little company that sat their horses, curiously observ- 
ing the race. 

As the first rider came up with them, Lincoln 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 135 

called out: "John, is this the day of your final entry, 
and have you the money?" 

There was a look of despair in the man's haggard 
face. Reining up his spent beast, and gazing anx- 
iously down the muddy road that still lay before 
him, he answered: "Yes, I've got the money; but 
my horse can't make it." 

"Mine can," said Lincoln. "Take him, and save 
your land. Take the right-hand road a mile ahead of 
this, and get on the south road into town. By this 
you will save a mile. Take care of the horse as well 
as you can, but be sure to get there in time to save 
your land." 

This exchange having been rapidly effected, the 
settler pushed on, and did reach Springfield in time 
to win the day. He had not been at the land-office 
long when his benefactor appeared on the scene, for 
the purpose of still further aiding him as an attor- 
ney. The proffered services were gladly accepted, 
John's title was perfected, and one more homestead 
rested secure from the malevolence of the "sharks." 
How many of these scurvy creatures were gaffed 
by Lincoln is of course not known. He was, as one 
friend expressed it, "a terror" to the whole breed; 
and common report credited him with being more 
active in thwarting their devices than any other 
lawyer throughout the State. Always on the side of 
the settlers, he could not, it is said, be hired to take 
any of the public-land cases against them. They ap- 
pear to have been people of little or no means, yet 
his ability, influence, and untiring perseverance were 
at their command, without reserve. Homes trem- 



136 HONEST ABE 

bled in the balance; that was enough for him. And 
whether these pioneers paid small fees or none at all, 
their cause never failed to enlist the stalwart cham- 
pionship of Abraham Lincoln.^ 

Nor was it among these unfortunates alone that 
we find the numerous instances of those who enjoyed 
his protection free of charge. For looking upon the 
law as a profession, not a trade, as a factor in the 
administration of justice, not a mere money-getting 
business, he could not bring himself to the point of 
increasing any poor client's embarrassments by de- 
manding fees. In fact, as has been the case with 
many a truly great lawyer, his skill was ever at the 
service of the indigent and oppressed, without regard 
to compensation. Their plights, not their depleted 
purses, concerned him. Taking such clients into his 
affections, with all the sympathy of an older brother 
who had himself trodden the stony path over which 
he was helping them, Lincoln found a pleasure in the 
relationship that money could not buy. If the ques- 
tion of pay were raised by some grateful but impov- 
erished litigant, Portia's answer might readily have 
served : — 

" He is well paid that is well satisfied; 
And I, delivering you, am satisfied, 
And therein do account myself well paid." 

This was Lincoln's attitude of mind when he re- 
fused to make a charge for saving Hannah Arm- 
strong's graceless son from the gallows. But his 
liberality on that occasion should perhaps be cred- 
ited to gratitude rather than to humanity. Not so, 
however, his generous treatment of the Revolution- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 137 

ary soldier's widow. What he did for that chance 
cHent, in winning her suit without pay and defraying 
all costs besides, must be set down to pure benevo- 
lence. It reminds one of the spirit which prompted 
Theophilus Parsons, with his fine scorn for money, 
in the presence of distress, to decline fees from wid- 
ows. How much further than that Lincoln went 
along unmercenary lines has been variously related. 
A few of the typical stories may be pertinent here. 

Some time during 1843, Isaac Cogdal, the Rock 
Creek quarryman, was in financial difficulties. He 
employed Mr. Lincoln to do the necessary legal work 
and settled therefor with a promissory note. Not 
long after this, the luckless client, while making a 
blast, had an accident whereby he lost one of his 
arms. Meeting Lincoln some time after, on the steps 
of the State House at Springfield, he stopped in re- 
sponse to the lawyer's kindly greeting. Cogdal's 
sad face told its own tale, and a sympathetic ques- 
tion as to how he was getting along, elicited the re- 
ply: "Badly enough, I am both broken up in busi- 
ness, and crippled." Then he added, "I have been 
thinking about that note of yours." "Well, you 
need n't think any more about it," rejoined the attor- 
ney, laughing, as he took out his wallet and handed 
him the paper. Much moved, Cogdal protested, but 
Lincoln, with the remark, "If you had the money, I 
would not take it," hurried away."* 

Labors of a more serious character were at times 
hardly more profitable. For instance, during the 
summer of 1841 Lincoln, together with his partner, 
Stephen T. Logan, and Edward D. Baker, conducted 



138 HONEST ABE 

the defense of three brothers who were charged with 
murder. Two of the accused men, William Trailor, 
from Warren County, and Henry Trailor, from 
Clary's Grove, accompanied by their friend Archi- 
bald Fisher, had come to visit the third brother, 
Archibald Trailor, in Springfield. Shortly after their 
arrival, Fisher mysteriously disappeared. A hue and 
cry ensued. The missing man was known to have 
had money; the Trailors were known to be in debt. 
While search-parties went in various directions to 
find Fisher's dead body, the brothers were placed 
under arrest. Then certain police officers so played 
upon the fears of Henry, who was weak-minded, that 
he made what purported to be a confession. His 
story set forth in great detail how William and Archi- 
bald, after killing their friend, had thrown the corpse 
into Spring Creek; but no sign of the remains could 
be discovered by the eager investigators who dragged 
that stream. At the examining trial, before two mag- 
istrates, many witnesses were introduced by the 
prosecution. Henry Trailor repeated his narrative 
under oath, and the prospect looked black, indeed, 
for his two brothers, when their counsel showed by 
reputable evidence that Fisher, afflicted with occa- 
sional aberration of mind, had in several previous 
instances wandered away. This led to more intelli- 
gent inquiry, and Fisher was traced to Warren, 
whither he had indeed walked in a demented con- 
dition. The Trailors were, of course, promptly dis- 
charged. As William and "Arch" rushed into each 
other's arms, weeping like children, the court is said 
to have become "like Bedlam." 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 139 

An outline of this remarkable case was sketched 
by Lincoln, in a letter still extant, to his absent 
friend, Joshua F. Speed. It is from another source, 
however, that we learn our most significant fact. 
An admiring account of the affair has been pre- 
served by a student in the Springfield law-office. 
He relates that Lincoln — whatever the other attor- 
neys may have done — not only gave his services 
to these harassed men without charge, but that he 
even defrayed some of their expenses from his own 
pocket.^ 

How much of this generosity was due to the old 
Clary's Grove associations may not now be deter- 
mined. Certain it is that Lincoln found difficulty 
in bringing himself to the point of making out bills 
against those early neighbors. "He was always kind 
to his friends," said one of them, William McNeely, 
"and attended to some law business for me — fre- 
quently gave me advice, — and I do not recollect of 
his ever charging me anything for it." ^ 

Another of these favored associates, Harvey L. 
Ross, appears to have had a similar experience. 
Carrying the mails in pioneer days for his father, 
Ossian M. Ross, who was postmaster at Havana, 
Illinois, he had become well acquainted with the 
tall, good-natured young incumbent of the post- 
ofifice at New Salem. Lincoln took a fancy to this 
youthful messenger, and they became good friends. 
So later, upon Ossian's death, when Harvey needed 
legal help, he called upon his former associate, in 
practice by that time at Springfield. Young Ross 
had inherited from his father's estate a quarter-sec- 



140 HONEST ABE 

tion of land with a defective title. This could be 
made good only by the evidence of a man named 
Hagerty. Bringing him to Lincoln's office, one sum- 
mer day, Harvey showed the papers and told his 
story. After listening attentively, the attorney said : 
" I am sorry to have to tell you that you are a little 
too late, for the court has adjourned, and will not 
meet again for six months, and Judge Thomas has 
gone home. He lives on a farm a mile east of town, 
but we will go and see him, and see if he can do 
anything for you." 

Mindful of the warm August weather, Ross wished 
to hire a carriage; but Lincoln answered, "No, I can 
walk if you can." So after shedding his coat, off he 
strode with a bandana handkerchief, which did 
frequent duty, in one hand, the papers in the other. 
Client and witness followed as best they could. 
Arriving at the judge's residence, the party was di- 
rected to a distant field, in which they found him 
busily engaged, with his men, on a new corncrib. 
He stopped to hear Lincoln's tactful statement of 
their errand, sent for writing materials, examined 
Hagerty, and signed the desired papers. The magis- 
trate, like the attorney, — to say nothing of the 
other participants in this little scene, — was coat- 
less, which led Lincoln to remark that they had been 
holding "a kind of a shirt-sleeve court." "Yes," 
replied His Honor, "a shirt-sleeve court in a corn- 
field." The hint was not lost on our amiable coun- 
selor. Upon his motion, all hands, including bench 
and bar, united their strength to raise the heaviest 
logs — a service which Judge Thomas gratefully 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 141 

accepted in lieu of fees. Court then stood adjourned, 
and the visitors departed. 

When they had returned to the offtce in Spring- 
field, Ross, taking out his pocket-book, said: "Now, 
Mr. Lincoln, how much shall I pay you for this long 
walk through the hot sun and dust?" 

As the lawyer applied the big handkerchief to his 
perspiring face, he answered: "I guess I will not 
charge anything for that. I will let it go on the old 
score." 

Recalling the many kindnesses already credited 
from this source to "the old score," Harvey — so 
runs the tale — could not control himself, and the 
tears came into his eyes.^ 

The lawyers among Lincoln's friends were, at 
times, not more successful in obtaining bills from 
him for services rendered. "You must not think of 
offering me pay for this," he wrote after submitting a 
legal opinion which one of them had requested him 
to prepare.^ Somewhat similar in tone was his re- 
sponse to General Usher F. Linder, when that col- 
league at the bar, and occasional political opponent, 
appealed for assistance during a period of dire dis- 
tress. The general's son Dan had, in the heat of a 
quarrel, shot a young man named Benjamin Boyle. 
When he was placed under arrest, the assailant 
seemed, for the moment, without even the custom- 
ary legal supports, as his father, seriously ill with 
inflammatory rheumatism, could hardly move hand 
or foot. The affair had happened "in a quarter of 
the country where," as General Ewing relates, Lin- 
coln "was a tower of strength ; where his name raised 



142 HONEST ABE 

up friends; where his arguments at law had more 
power than the instructions of the court." But these 
triumphs, be it said, left the potent advocate un- 
spoilt. For they had not perceptibly increased the 
size of his head, nor decreased the size of his heart. 
In a sympathetic reply to Linder's agonized cry for 
help, Lincoln promised that no business, however 
important, should be allowed to keep him from being 
present and aiding in the trial. He felt deeply moved 
over the general's trouble, yet what appears to have 
disturbed him almost as much was an offer of fees. 
This called forth a spirited but gentle protest, de- 
clining pay of any kind. No act of his, he asserted, 
justified the supposition that Abraham Lincoln 
would take money from a friend for assisting in 
the defense of an imperiled son.^ But no trial took 
place; for, as Boyle recovered, Dan was finally re- 
leased. He went South, entered the Confederate 
army during the Civil War, and became, when taken 
prisoner, the recipient of still further kindnesses 
from the hand of that same attorney engaged, at the 
time, in trying the great cause entitled. Union versus 
Disunion. ^° 

What Lincoln did on occasions for those who were 
not of his party, he did as cheerfully, it is perhaps 
needless to say, for the faithful. His political asso- 
ciates always found him ready and willing to render 
proper legal services, but they never found him keen 
about setting a price upon the work when completed. 
This was especially so with regard to matters of a 
public nature. One case in point, which may be re- 
garded as typical, has been related by Henry B. 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 143 

Blackwell. Recalling some of his own early experi- 
ences, he said, a few years ago: — 

"In 1857, in behalf of New York publishers, I 
went from Chicago to Springfield with Mr. Powell, 
the state superintendent of public instruction, to 
consult Mr. Lincoln as to the details of a proposed 
contract for the introduction of district school li- 
braries. We met him as he was coming out of the 
court-house with his green bag in his hand. Greeting 
us cordially, he took up our affair, giving us the ad- 
vice we sought; but with characteristic unselfish- 
ness, he declined to accept compensation for his legal 
services on a question of public interest." ^^ 

More numerous still were the instances of valuable 
counsel given by Lincoln, without price, to the clients 
whom he dissuaded from bringing contemplated 
suits. Some of these cases, as we have seen, involved 
unprincipled demands, but others rested upon hon- 
estly mistaken convictions. To this latter class, 
apparently, belonged the real-estate claim which a 
lady once placed in his hands for prosecution. She 
told him her story, wrote out a check by way of 
retainer, and left some papers for the attorney's 
examination. At their next interview Mr. Lincoln 
reported frankly that a careful reading of the docu- 
ments had disclosed "not a peg" to hang the claim 
upon. He felt obliged, therefore, to advise against 
bringing an action. The lady, evidently satisfied 
that she had no case, thanked him, took her papers, 
and arose to go. 

"Wait a moment," said he. "Here is the check 
you gave me." 



144 HONEST ABE 

"But," she replied, "Mr. Lincoln, I think you 
have earned that." 

"No, no," he rejoined, handing it back to her; 
"that would not be right." 

A few words more of the same tenor followed. 
Then the surprised client departed, richer by the 
rejected fee and an expert opinion for which she had 
paid nothing. ^2 

In similar fashion many a matter that had reached 
a more advanced stage was settled by Lincoln, as 
the reader will remember, out of court and usually 
without charge. He appears to have been governed, 
on such occasions, by the rule which led Sir Matthew 
Hale to refuse fees for his services as an arbitrator. 
"In these cases," said the great English jurist, "I 
am made a judge, and a judge ought to take no 
money." The American peacemaker, however, ex- 
plained his moderation, whether as attorney or ref- 
eree, on less lofty grounds. To a young associate, 
who suggested that he should render bills in such 
instances, Lincoln laughingly replied: "They would 
n't want to pay me. They don't think I have earned 
a fee unless I take the case into court and make a 
speech or two." ^^ 

There are always suitable reasons enough as to 
why a man should work without recompense, if he 
looks for them in anything like Lincoln's mood of 
lovable self-forgetfulness. How far this was some- 
times carried by him may be inferred from his treat- 
ment of certain wealthy clients at the close of his 
legal career. He had been retained for the stock- 
holders of the Atlantic Railroad Company, in a suit 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 145 

brought against them by some creditors of that cor- 
poration. Their case was in charge of former Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Gustave Koerner, at whose request 
the great lawyer's services had been enhsted. Many 
important consultations between the associated 
counsel had taken place, and their carefully prepared 
answer for the defense had been put in, when Mr, 
Lincoln received his nomination to the Presidency. 
He asked to be relieved, at once, from further at- 
tendance on the case, a request which was of course 
complied with. His clients, moreover, appreciative 
of the work that had already been done by him, ar- 
ranged for the payment of a handsome fee. To their 
surprise it was declined. "He utterly refused," re- 
lates Koerner, "to take anything, although they 
almost pressed the money on him." ^"^ And so, to 
the very end of the chapter, this remarkable man 
evinced more agility, at times, in dodging payments 
than most men expend in reaching for them. 

But there is one instance, at least, of Lincoln find- 
ing himself paid against his will. The circumstances 
have not been made entirely clear, yet one cannot 
scan the meager details of the affair without an un- 
comfortable feeling that something about it was dis- 
creditable — whether to Lincoln or to others re- 
mains equally vague. The episode presents peculiar 
interest, however, as an illustration of the extreme 
to which he went in dealing with a fee that had been 
forced upon him. His partner, Mr. Herndon, relat- 
ing what happened to a magazine writer shortly after 
the war, said : — 

"One morning a gentleman came here and asked 



146 HONEST ABE 

him to use his legal influence in a certain quarter, 
where Lincoln again and again assured him he had 
no power. I heard him refuse the five hundred dol- 
lars offered, over and over again. I went out and left 
them together. I suppose Lincoln got tired of refus- 
ing, for he finally took the money; but he never 
offered any of it to me ; and it was noticeable that, 
whenever he took money in that way, he never 
seemed to consider it his own or mine. In this case, 
he gave the money to the Germans in the town, who 
wanted to buy themselves a press. A few days after, 
he said to me in the coolest way, 'Herndon, I gave 
the Germans two hundred and fifty dollars of yours 
the other day.' ' I am glad you did, Mr. Lincoln,' I 
answered. Of course I could not say I was glad he 
took it." '' 

Some years after this recital, when Mr. Herndon 
wrote the life of his illustrious associate, he made no 
reference to the incident. As that biography, what- 
ever else can be said concerning its merits, mani- 
festly aimed to set forth the real Lincoln, without 
undue eulogy on the one hand or the suppression of 
unfavorable facts on the other, this omission is sig- 
nificant. It indicates that the retainer at which he 
balked may not, after all, have required any consid- 
erable departure from his customary high standards. 
Perhaps, indeed, as he had anticipated, nothing was 
done to earn the fee. That alone would suffice to 
explain why Lincoln did not consider the money his, 
and why he cast it into the first conscience fund 
which offered itself. 

Next to retaining payments for which no equiva- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 147 

lents in services have been rendered ranks the dis- 
honesty of charging too much for work that has 
actually been done. So thought Lincoln. He wished 
to avoid the one fault as much as the other. And his 
anxiety to make fair prices led him, at times, into 
the opposite error, that of asking fees which fell ab- 
surdly short of what they should have been. Money, 
it is true, was far from plentiful in Illinois during 
those days of small things. Such limited sums as 
people possessed had to supply many wants; and 
legal services, like other kinds of labor, seemed rela- 
tively cheap. Yet when Lincoln came to the making 
out of bills, his charges were not infrequently so light 
as to fall sheer below even these moderate standards. 
How far in this direction he sometimes went may be 
gathered from a multitude of anecdotes concerning 
him that still pass current throughout the region 
comprised within the old Eighth Judicial Circuit. 
Every one of these tales, however trivial, opens a 
window into the man's soul ; and it is only by having 
regard to many, if not all of them, that we can reach 
the various angles at which he should be scrutinized. 

In depicting a great personage, the historian may 
rest content with broad generalizations; the biogra- 
pher may stop at a few specific illustrations of prom- 
inent features in his subject's make-up ; but the stu- 
dent of character, recognizing the value of cumula- 
tive instances, must go further and, at the risk of 
seeming prolix, — perhaps unskilled, — must mar- 
shal enough kindred happenings in line to demon- 
strate the presence or absence of significant traits. 

Lincoln's proneness to underrate his services, 



148 HONEST ABE 

when he tried to express them in terms of dollars 
and cents, occasionally took a striking form. One 
instance is related by Abraham Brokaw, of Bloom- 
ington, Illinois. He had brought an action against a 
neighbor who owed him considerable money. The 
debt was collected by the sheriff, but that officer, 
becoming insolvent, had failed to make proper re- 
turn of the proceeds. Whereupon Brokaw retained 
Lincoln's great political rival, Stephen A. Douglas, 
to sue the sureties on the official bond. This re- 
sulted in prompt payment of the claim. But the 
"Little Giant," engrossed in one of his strenuous 
campaigns for Congress, proved to be no improve- 
ment over the delinquent sheriff, so far as that wait- 
ing creditor was concerned. King Log had been 
exchanged for King Stork. Douglas, with charac- 
teristic heedlessness, let the money slip somehow 
through his fingers, and returned to Washington 
without having made a settlement. Then Brokaw's 
overstrained patience snapped. Neither the man's 
ardent Democracy nor his admiration for the party's 
dashing young leader was proof against such a suc- 
cession of disappointments. He engaged Lincoln to 
obtain an immediate accounting, and that gentle- 
man, nothing loath, sent Douglas, who was still at 
the capital, a rather sharp letter demanding prompt 
payment. This deeply incensed the recipient. Writ- 
ing an indignant reply to Brokaw direct, he pro- 
tested against the outrage of placing any such weapon 
in the hands of a political opponent. So delicate 
a matter, urged the complaint, might at least have 
been entrusted to a Democrat. The letter was re- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 149 

mailed to Lincoln, who entered briskly enough into 
the humor of the situation. Taking Douglas at his 
word, he forwarded the claim to "Long John" 
Wentworth, a Democratic member of Congress from 
Chicago. Then the "Little Giant" capitulated, and 
Brokaw at last received his money. 

"What do you suppose Lincoln charged me?" 
queried the successful claimant, telling the story. 
"He charged me exactly three dollars and fifty 
cents for collecting nearly six hundred dollars." 

When asked his reason for retaining so small a 
fee, the attorney is said to have replied: "I had no 
trouble with it. I sent it to my friend in Washing- 
ton, and was only out the postage." ^® 

This naive explanation deserves a place side by 
side with that of the hospitable hostess, who, setting 
an elaborate luncheon before her guests, brushed 
away their protests by assuring them of its cheap- 
ness. "Why," said she, "the whole affair cost almost 
nothing. I had everything in the house but ten 
cents' worth of cinnamon." 

The Brokaw episode, moreover, recalls another 
instance of how liberally Lincoln discounted the 
value of his services when a friendly colleague had 
helped him out. It has been related by Isaac Haw- 
ley, a citizen of Springfield. He was sued in an 
action of ejectment from a piece of land on the so- 
called "military tract" of Brown County. The suit 
had been brought in the United States Court, so 
Hawley employed Mr. Lincoln to look after the case, 
whenever it should come up for trial at Chicago. 
After giving the matter considerable attention 



150 HONEST ABE 

through several terms of court, the attorney ar- 
ranged with a local lawyer to watch the case in his 
absence. The man on guard did this work so well 
that when the case was called he had it dismissed. 
Delighted at the outcome, Mr. Hawley asked for a 
bill, expecting, as he afterward explained, to pay not 
less than fifty dollars. But great was his astonish- 
ment when Lincoln said: "Well, Isaac, I think I will 
charge you about ten dollars. I think that would be 
about right." ^^ 

Another Lincoln client, George W. Nance by name, 
who settled at even a larger ratio of difference be- 
tween what he thought was due and what he actu- 
ally paid, writes: "I engaged his services in a law- 
suit, and on asking his charge, to my surprise he only 
asked me two dollars and fifty cents. I had no idea 
of paying less then ten dollars." ^^ 

Still another friend and client, John W. Bunn, of 
Springfield, bears testimony to the same general 
efTect. He tells how George Smith & Company, a 
firm of Chicago bankers, requested him to retain an 
attorney who should look after their defense in a 
local attachment suit which involved several thou- 
sand dollars. Mr. Bunn entrusted the case to Lin- 
coln. That skillful advocate won a verdict at the 
trial, and charged twenty-five dollars for his victory. 
When the bill reached them, the Chicago men wrote 
to their correspondent: "We asked you to get the 
best lawyer in Springfield, and it certainly looks as 
if you had secured one of the cheapest." ^^ 

No less an authority than Daniel Webster was 
similarly impressed with Lincoln's moderation. The 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 151 

"Great Expounder" employed him to transact 
some legal business concerning a certain speculation 
in land, at the place where Rock River flows into 
the Mississippi. An embryo city, laid out there by the 
promoters, had not been a success, and most of the 
property, on which but one payment had been made, 
reverted finally to the original owners. For such 
services as he could render Mr. Lincoln charged ten 
dollars, a fee so far from adequate, in Mr. Webster's 
estimation, that he frequently referred to its small- 
ness and declared himself still his attorney's debtor. 

An English barrister, quite as eminent, perhaps, as 
our "Godlike Daniel," once facetiously defined the 
lawyer to be "a learned gentleman who rescues your 
estate from your enemies and keeps it himself." 
Such a view of the profession has, from time to time, 
been held in sober earnest by not a few citizens 
of both countries. Certainly the Illinois matron, 
whom her son quotes in the following characteristic 
little anecdote, appears to have been of this opinion. 
But it is interesting to notice how, on one occasion, 
at least, she had to modify the gibe in favor of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

"My father," relates Henry Rickel, " had a claim 
against a man of the name of Townsend, to the 
amount of fifteen hundred dollars or more; and he 
learned one day that he was about to leave the 
country, and had a drove of cattle, and was on the 
way to Oregon. My father went to Mr. Lincoln, 
secured an attachment, Mr. Lincoln furnishing the 
bond, and there was a vigorous contest over the 
matter. I remember the evening after the trial my 



152 HONEST ABE 

father came home, and my mother asked him how 
he came out. His reply was: ' I came out ahead, of 
course, because I had Abe for my lawyer.' 

"My mother seemed to have a pretty poor opin- 
ion of lawyers in general, and she said: 'I suppose 
the lawyers will take most of it.' 

"And father replied: 'Why, mother, what do you 
suppose Abe charged me?' 

"She mentioned a very large sum. My father 
said: 'You are greatly mistaken. He said to me, 
"Mr. Rickel, I will only charge you twenty-five dol- 
lars, and if you think that is too much, I will make 
it less.'"" 20 

As surprisingly small a fee — the same sum, in 
fact — contented Lincoln after another verdict of 
even more importance. This had been reached in 
what was called the Dungee slander suit. That it 
involved far heavier labors on his part, and that it 
may be classed among those triumphs in which a 
good round charge is peculiarly appropriate, appears 
to have made no difference. He had carried all be- 
fore him through a hotly contested trial ; but in the 
supreme hour, when nothing remained save to gather 
the fruits of victory, his hand fell limp at his side. 
It makes rather a long story, yet to appreciate fully 
what happened one must know the salient details. 

To begin, this action was brought before Judge 
Davis, at Clinton, during the spring of 1856, after 
Lincoln had attained prominence as a lawyer. It 
grew out of a quarrel between two brothers-in-law, 
Jack Dungee and Joe Spencer. The former, a dark- 
complexioned Portuguese, had married the latter's 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 153 

sister. How their broil originated is not now defi- 
nitely known. When it was at its height, however, 
Spencer called Dungee a "nigger," and followed 
this up, as they said, by adding "a nigger married 
to a white woman." The words were slanderous 
because, under Illinois law, such a union constituted 
a crime. Laying his damages at several thousand 
dollars, the aggrieved man employed Mr. Lincoln to 
bring suit, whereupon the defendant enlisted the 
services of Clifton H. Moore and Lawrence Weldon. 
When the matter came up, these two able lawyers 
demurred to the complaint, on technical grounds; 
and their motion, to Lincoln's great chagrin, was 
sustained by the court. It touched his professional 
pride to have a case thrown out, in that manner, 
because of faulty papers, as indeed it would any 
practitioner. Gathering himself together, he leaned 
across the trial table, and shaking a long bony fin- 
ger toward his opponents, he exclaimed: "Now, by 
Jing, I'll beat you boys!" 

To make good that threat Lincoln appeared at the 
next term of court with amended pleadings. He 
threw himself into the trial with a mastery which 
gave evidence of painstaking preparation ; while the 
logic, wit, and eloquence that marked his argument 
to the jury compelled the admiration of even his ad- 
versaries. After a hard-fought battle extending over 
two days, the case terminated in a heavy judgment 
for the plaintiff. 

His counsel had said that Dungee sought vindica- 
tion, not money; accordingly the defendant's law- 
yers came and said: "Mr. Lincoln, you have beaten 



154 HONEST ABE 

us, as you said you would. We want now to ground 
the weapons of our unequal warfare, and as you said 
your client did not want to make money out of the 
suit, we thought you might get him to remit some of 
the judgment. We know Spencer has acted the fool, 
but this judgment will break him up." 

"Well," replied Lincoln, " I will cheerfully advise 
my client to remit on the most favorable terms. The 
defendant is a fool. But he has one virtue. He is in- 
dustrious and has worked hard for what he has, so 
I am not disposed to hold him responsible. If every 
fool was to be dealt with by being held responsible 
in money for his folly, the poorhouses of the country 
would have to be enlarged very much beyond their 
present capacity." 

Guided by this benevolent spirit, Dungee con- 
sented to forego the whole judgment on condition 
that Spencer would defray all costs, and pay Mr. 
Lincoln's bill. When the proposition had been ea- 
gerly accepted, a question arose as to what the bill 
should be. Lincoln referred this to Moore and Wel- 
don, but they both insisted that he, not they, ought 
to fix the amount of his fee. 

"Well, gentlemen," came the response, after a 
few moments' thought, "don't you think I have 
honestly earned twenty-five dollars?" 

What the gentlemen thought was thus expressed 
by Judge Weldon, in after life, when he told the 
story: "We were astonished, and had he said one 
hundred dollars it would have been what we ex- 
pected. The judgment was a large one for those 
days. He had attended the case at two terms of 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 155 

court, had been engaged for two days in a hotly con- 
tested suit, and his client's adversary was going to 
pay the bill. The simplicity of Mr. Lincoln's char- 
acter in money matters is well illustrated by the fact 
that for all this he charged twenty-five dollars." ^^ 

An equally striking undervaluation was remarked 
in another slander suit, — one of wide repute, — 
which took place at about the same period. This 
case is known as the Chiniquy affair. It was brought 
in the Circuit Court of Kankakee County, by Peter 
Spink, a prominent citizen of L'Erable, against 
Father Charles Chiniquy, the famous priest of St. 
Anne. That reverend gentleman had, in the course 
of a sermon, charged the plaintiff, one of his pa- 
rishioners, with having committed perjury; and the 
object of this attack had lost no time in seeking 
reparation. His attorneys were Messrs. Starr, Nor- 
ton & McRoberts. Chiniquy was represented by 
John W. Paddock and Uri Osgood. According to the 
defendant's own overcharged, not to say hysterical, 
narrative, this prosecution had been set on foot at 
the instigation of his superior, Bishop O'Regan, with 
whom he then already waged the unequal warfare 
which later attracted so much attention. The mer- 
its of his polemic do not concern us here. Certain 
members of the church may, as the priest states in 
his book, have conspired to ruin him, and that par- 
ticular diocese may, at the time, have harbored those 
shameful abuses which he decries; but what Chin- 
iquy says about Spink's suit should be received 
with caution, for it departs materially, at important 
points, from the official court records. 



156 HONEST ABE 

When the case came up in Kankakee, during the 
autumn of 1855, counsel for the plaintiff secured 
a change of venue to Champaign County. This 
greatly troubled Father Chiniquy. The heavy ex- 
pense — far beyond his means — of bringing wit- 
nesses and lawyers to a distant tribunal, as well as 
the perils of a trial among strangers appalled him. 
He was leaving the court-room cast down by these 
prospects, when an unknown well-wisher, hurrying 
up with eager words of sympathy, urged that Abra- 
ham Lincoln be retained to take part in the defense. 

"But," queried the priest, "who is that Abraham 
Lincoln? I never heard of that man before." 

To which the other responded : "Abraham Lincoln 
is the best lawyer and the most honest man we have 
in Illinois." 

Returning to where his counsel were still in con- 
sultation, Chiniquy asked their opinion of the sug- 
gestion. They warmly approved, so he accompanied 
this new-found friend to the telegraph office. In a 
brief exchange of messages over the Springfield wire, 
Lincoln promised his aid. Then the stranger, still 
preserving his incognito, paid the operator, gave the 
priest a few further words of encouragement, and 
hastened away. He had not been gone long before 
Spink entered the office, for the purpose of retaining 
that same attorney, but it was too late. 

At the May term of the following year, when the 
trial opened in Urbana, Mr. Lincoln, according to 
agreement, appeared for the defense. He aroused 
the admiration of his client by the skill with which 
he both met the evidence of the prosecution and 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 157 

marshaled the witnesses on their own side. As most 
of the persons concerned were French Canadians, 
the testimony had to be taken chiefly through an 
interpreter. This drew the proceedings out to tedi- 
ous lengths, and increased the labors of counsel not 
a little. The trial was, however, slowly approaching 
its close when one of the jurymen appeared to be in 
great distress. 

"What is that juror crying about?" asked Judge 
Davis, who presided. 

" My child is dying," was the sobbing answer. 

A neighbor, coming into court had, unperceived 
by any one, whispered these tidings to the unfortu- 
nate father. His grief so moved the judge that, after 
a few questions addressed to the newcomer, he 
said to the juryman: 'You're discharged, — go at 
once." 

Then, turning to the counsel in the case. His 
Honor inquired: "Gentlemen, will you proceed with 
the eleven jurymen?" 

After both sides had consulted, Lincoln responded, 
"We will"; but Norton replied, "We decline." So 
the jury had to be discharged, and the case was con- 
tinued to the October term. 

Another trial appears to have been well under 
way in the following autumn when Lincoln exerted 
his powers as peacemaker and brought about a com- 
promise. He probably framed the agreement under 
which the suit was dismissed, for the final order still 
stands on the court records in his handwriting. By 
its terms Chiniquy's charges against Spink were 
withdrawn, and each party consented to pay his own 



158 HONEST ABE 

costs. The reverend Father's expenses must have 
borne heavily upon him. If his own statement is to 
be credited, Messrs. Paddock and Osgood asked him 
for a thousand dollars each. Commenting on the 
size of the fee, he adds, " I had not thought that too 
much." 

So, when it came to settling with Mr. Lincoln, the 
third counsel, whose services in Chiniquy's estima- 
tion were more than again as valuable, the poor 
priest asked for a bill with some trepidation. To his 
bewilderment, as he relates, the lawyer replied: 
"You owe me nothing; for I suppose you are quite 
ruined. The expenses of such a suit, I know, must 
be enormous. Your enemies want to ruin you. Will 
I help them to finish your ruin, when I hope I have 
the right to be put among the most sincere and de- 
voted of your friends?" 

But Father Chiniquy would not let the matter 
rest there. He urged that Mr. Lincoln should at 
least charge his hotel bills and traveling expenses. 
Whereupon the attorney wrote on a scrap of paper: 

Urbana, May 23, 1856. 
Due A. Lincoln fifty dollars, for value received. 

"Can you sign that?" he asked. And the over- 
wrought client, breaking into sobs, afifixed his signa- 
ture.^^ 

So large a disparity in size between Lincoln's fees 
and those of other lawyers engaged on the same case, 
as occurred in the Chiniquy matter, was probably 
not common. There were differences enough, how- 
ever, to provoke comment ; and one of them, at least, 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 159 

led to an amusing situation. On that occasion he 
gained a verdict for an aged German who was in 
danger of losing his farm. The suit had been a try- 
ing one, but after years of litigation from court to 
court, it resulted in their favor. Then Lincoln 
charged two hundred dollars, which the old man, se- 
cure of his property, willingly paid. Yet the attor- 
ney's conscience was not quite at ease in the matter. 
His reflections were disturbed by a fear that the bill 
might have been excessive, and the more he thought 
about it the stronger became his feeling. So, seeking 
out the lawyer on the other side, who happened to 
be his brother-in-law, Ninian W. Edwards, Lincoln 
asked him what he — the losing advocate — had 
charged his client. 

"Two hundred and fifty dollars," was the reply. 

It touched the questioner's ever-ready sense of 
humor. He laughed, and decided to keep his fee 
without further parley. 

But there are instances in which fees, or rather 
such portions of them as appeared exorbitant, were 
not kept. One of these episodes has, within recent 
years, been related by Mr. George P. Floyd. Having 
rented the Quincy House at Quincy, Illinois, from 
the owner, Mrs. Enos, who lived in Springfield, 
he employed Mr. Lincoln to draw up a lease and 
have it executed. When the document reached 
Mr. Floyd, no bill for services accompanied it. A 
proper charge would, in his estimation, have been 
twenty-five dollars. So he sent the attorney that 
amount. Within a few days, to his astonishment, 
came this reply: — 



i6o HONEST ABE 

Springfield, III., February 21, 1856. 

Mr. George P. Floyd, 
Quincy, III. 
Dear Sir: — I have just received yours of i6th, 
with check on Flagg & Savage for twenty-five dol- 
lars. You must think I am a high-priced man. You 
are too liberal with your money. Fifteen dollars is 
enough for the job. I send you a receipt for fifteen 
dollars, and return to you a ten-dollar bill. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 2» 

On another occasion the writer of this singular 
missive went further. He not only returned part of 
his own fee, but he also insisted that his associate 
should do likewise. The associate himself — it was 
Ward Hill Lamon, one of Lincoln's local partners on 
circuit — tells the story. He had been retained in a 
case of some importance by a client named Scott. 
The man was acting as conservator for a demented 
sister, who possessed property that amounted to ten 
thousand dollars, mostly in cash. This ready money 
— a neat sum for those days — had excited the cu- 
pidity of a certain adventurer who sought to marry 
the unfortunate girl, and as an essential preliminary 
to that step a motion had been made for the removal 
of her conservator. It was to oppose this action that 
Scott retained Lamon, insisting, however, at the 
time, upon having the amount of his fee determined 
in advance. The attorney advised him to wait, as 
the matter might not give much trouble, in which 
event a comparatively small charge would be suffi- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 161 

cient. But the suggestion met with no favor, so 
Lamon named two hundred and fifty dollars. This 
sum, Scott, anticipating a prolonged contest, ea- 
gerly agreed to pay. When the case came on, how- 
ever, Lincoln, who appeared for him, won a com- 
plete victory inside of twenty minutes. And as they 
stood within the bar, Scott, much elated, paid La- 
mon the stipulated fee. Mr. Lincoln, who had been 
looking on while the money was counted out, said 
to his colleague, after their client's departure: 
"What did you charge that man?" 

When the amount was stated, he exclaimed: 
"Lamon, that is all wrong. The service was not 
worth that sum. Give him back at least half of it." 

But the other protested that the figure had been 
agreed on in advance, and that Scott expressed him- 
self as perfectly satisfied. To which Lincoln, sorely 
displeased, rejoined: "That may be, but I am not 
satisfied. This is positively wrong. Go, call him 
back, and return half the money at least, or I will 
not receive one cent of it for my share." 

There was naturally only one course open to the 
embarrassed junior. He hastened after Scott and, 
to that gentleman's astonishment, restored half the 
fee. 

This little colloquy had attracted the attention of 
both bench and bar. It appears to have especially 
interested the presiding judge, David Davis, who, 
calling the fault-finding attorney to him, said in a 
poorly controlled whisper, which could be heard 
throughout the court-room: "Lincoln, I have been 
watching you and Lamon. You are impoverishing 



i62 HONEST ABE 

this bar by your picayune charges of fees, and the 
lawyers have reason to complain of you. You are 
now almost as poor as Lazarus, and if you don't 
make people pay you more for your services, you 
will die as poor as Job's turkey." 

The rebuke was warmly applauded, but it made 
no impression on the man against whom it had been 
directed. 

"That money," said he, "comes out of the pocket 
of a poor, demented girl, and I would rather starve 
than swindle her in this manner." "^^ 

The matter was not allowed, however, to rest 
there. In the evening of that same day, Lincoln 
found himself arraigned for his offense before the 
" orgmathorial court." This was a sort of mock- 
tribunal maintained by Davis, on circuit, to try 
lawyers who might be charged with breaches of de- 
corum. No member of the jocund company, it is 
safe to say, had ever before been placed in the dock 
for the heinous crime of undervaluing his services. 
Yet complaints against this particular respondent, 
as the judge implied, had been frequent enough. 
Lamon was not the only attorney who had suffered, 
in mind and pocket, because of his Quixotic acts. 
Partner Herndon, himself a kindly man, is said 
to have expostulated repeatedly without effect ; and 
so far as the bar at large was concerned, some of its 
pillars doubtless felt the jolt at times of Lincoln's 
absurdly low standards. He had, moreover, been 
caught red-handed in the Scott case, so that the plea 
of a certain famous British barrister, similarly on 
trial before the circuit mess for disgracing his pro- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 163 

fession by accepting too small a fee, would hardly 
have answered. This earlier offender, Sergeant 
William Davy, is said to have made the since oft- 
quoted defense: "I took silver because I could not 
get gold. But I took every farthing the fellow had in 
the world, and I hope you don't call that disgracing 
the profession." ^^ 

Davy was nevertheless found guilty and fined. 
So was Lincoln. His fellow anglers in the turbid 
waters of the law had no sympathy with the rare 
sportsmanship which had prompted him to throw 
back half his catch. He proved to be a true sport, 
however, in more ways than one. The fine was paid, 
we are told, with great good humor; and then the 
culprit told stories that kept the court in an uproar 
of laughter until after midnight. 

There is another — a serious — side to this ques- 
tion. It was succinctly stated by Mr. Hoffman in 
this passage from one of his resolutions: "As a gen- 
eral rule I will carefully avoid what is called the 
'taking of half fees.' And though no one can be so 
competent as myself to judge what may be a just 
compensation for my services, yet when the quid- 
dam honorarium has been established by usage or 
law, I shall regard as eminently dishonorable all 
underbidding of my professional brethren." 

But Lincoln could not see it so. Strong as was his 
sympathy with these colleagues at the bar, they 
were forgotten when he sat down to write a bill. His 
own modest estimate of himself, his compassion for 
clients in distress, and above all his ever-present 
fear of taking a dishonest advantage, proved to be 



i64 HONEST ABE 

the controlling factors. Influenced by such habits of 
mind, to the very end, he declared, as Lamon states, 
that their firm should never, with his consent, de- 
serve the reputation enjoyed by those shining lights 
of the profession — "Catchem and Cheatem." 

To infer from all these things that Lincoln was 
wholly shiftless in monetary matters, or that he did 
not, at times, gladly receive the fees which had, 
according to his own rigid standards, been fairly 
earned, would be wide of the mark. He welcomed, 
for the most part, in fact, the gleanings of ordinary 
practice from clients who could afford to pay. Such 
small sums as the circuit yielded, and they usually 
were small, meant much to him; how much, may be 
seen in the little side-light thrown on the subject by 
another one of his local partners. Henry C. Whit- 
ney, recalling the end of a session, in the summer of 
1856, at Urbana, says: " He had collected twenty- 
five or thirty dollars for that term's business thus 
far, and one of our clients owed him ten dollars, 
which he felt disappointed at not being able to col- 
lect. So I gave him a check for that amount, and 
went with him to the bank to collect it. The cashier, 
T. S. Hubbard, who paid it, is still living in Urbana, 
and will probably remember it. I do not remember 
to have seen him happier than when he had got his 
little earnings together, being less than forty dollars, 
as I now recollect it, and had his carpet-bag packed, 
ready to start home." ^^ 

There is something almost pathetic in this scene, 
when one stops to think that the central figure was 
at the time a leader of the Illinois bar, and the 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 165 

very man whose persistent tenderness of his cHents' 
purses had made him an object of censure from the 
bench. Lincoln himself still further illuminates the 
topic. Early in his practice, while associated with 
the thriftiest of his Springfield partners, he wrote to 
one James S. Irwin: "Judge Logan and myself are 
willing to attend to any business in the Supreme 
Court you may send us. As to fees, it is impossible 
to establish a rule that will apply in all, or even a 
great many cases. We believe we are never accused 
of being unreasonable in this particular, and we 
would always be easily satisfied, provided we could 
see the money; but whatever fees we earn at a dis- 
tance, if not paid before, we have noticed, we never 
hear of after the work is done. We, therefore, are 
growing a little sensitive on that point." ^^ 

Under this same head, one of the younger lawyers 
has recollected a piece of "fatherly" advice given to 
him by Lincoln, while they were engaged in court. 
Addressing the fledgling as the jury went out, and 
referring to his client, a shifty fellow who sat near 
by, the older lawyer whispered : "You had better try 
and get your money now. If the jury comes in with 
a verdict for him, you won't get anything." ^^ 

So much for what the speaker once termed a 
"mere question of bread and butter." As to the rest, 
when clients did not pay, Lincoln was averse to suing 
them. His high ideals of professional ethics, no less 
than a certain personal fealty toward those who had 
honored him with their confidence, stood in the way 
of such prosecutions. And when any associates did, 
on rare occasions, carry the collection of unpaid bills 



i66 HONEST ABE 

for legal services into court, it was done contrary to 
his wishes. 

An instance of what would then be likely to hap- 
pen has been related by Mr. Herndon. "I remem- 
ber," says he, "once a man who had been indicted 
for forgery or fraud employed us to defend him. The 
illness of the prosecuting attorney caused some delay 
in the case, and our client, becoming dissatisfied at 
our conduct of the case, hired some one else, who 
superseded us most effectually. The defendant de- 
clining to pay us the fee demanded, on the ground 
that we had not represented him at the trial of the 
cause, I brought suit against him in Lincoln's ab- 
sence, and obtained judgment for our fee. After 
Lincoln's return from the circuit, the fellow hunted 
him up and, by means of a carefully constructed tale, 
prevailed on him to release the judgment without 
receiving a cent of pay. The man's unkind treat- 
ment of us deserved no such mark of generosity from 
Lincoln, and yet he could not resist the appeal of any 
one in poverty and want." ^^ 

A notable exception to the rule against suing for 
fees was made in the case of one wealthy client — 
the Illinois Central Railroad Company. That cor- 
poration, through its attorneys, Mason, Brayman, 
and James F. Joy, sent Mr. Lincoln, during the year 
1853, a retainer of two hundred dollars in an im- 
portant action. Suit had been brought by the cor- 
poration against McLean County to enjoin the 
collection of taxes assessed on railroad lands. The 
question at issue involved the interpretation of the 
charter whereby the corporation had been granted 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 167 

exemption from local taxation, on condition that it 
paid annually a certain percentage of its gross earn- 
ings into the State Treasury. Such immunity the 
Legislature, according to some county officers, had 
no right to confer; and the McLean authorities in- 
sisted upon taxing so much of the railroad property 
as lay within their jurisdiction. This course had 
brought about the case at bar by which it was 
planned to test the constitutionality of that law. 
When the suit came to trial, Lincoln, facing Stuart 
and Logan, is said to have conducted the plaintiff's 
side "with rare skill"; but the verdict, despite all 
his exertions, went against him. An appeal was 
promptly taken, however, to the Supreme Court, 
where, after twice arguing the case, and after two 
years of laborious litigation, all told, he succeeded 
in reversing the decision of the Circuit Court. 

This victory meant much to the Illinois Central 
Railroad Company. Although a comparatively small 
sum was involved in the suit itself, an adverse re- 
sult would have brought down upon the company 
a mass of claims, which, as some thought, might 
have led to bankruptcy. The road owned nearly 
two million acres of land and ran through twenty- 
six counties. Had all these several jurisdictions suc- 
ceeded in laying their annual burdens upon the com- 
pany, half a million dollars at interest would hardly 
have defrayed the tax. In view of all these facts, 
Lincoln considered two thousand dollars a moderate 
compensation, and presented a bill for that amount. 
What was his chagrin, however, to have Mr. Joy 
disallow the account, because it impressed him as an 



i68 HONEST ABE 

exorbitant charge from a "common country lawyer." 
The modesty of a Socrates or a Cato might have 
succumbed before such a rebuff. Lincoln withdrew 
the bill, and started for home. On the way, he 
stopped at Bloomington, where the affair became 
known to some of his colleagues on the circuit. In 
their indignation over the company's shabby con- 
duct, they persuaded him to make the charge five 
thousand dollars, and to set forth the increased de- 
mand by means of the following unique document: — 

The Illinois Central Railroad Company, 
To A. Lincoln Dr. 
To professional services in the 
case of the Illinois Central 
Railroad Company against the 
County of McLean, argued in 
the Supreme Court of the 
State of Illinois at December 
term, 1855, ^5000.00 

We, the undersigned members of the Illinois Bar, 
understanding that the above entitled cause was 
twice argued in the Supreme Court, and that the 
judgment therein decided the question of the claim 
of counties and other minor municipal corporations 
to the property of said railroad company, and set- 
tled said question against said claim and in favor of 
said railroad company, are of opinion the sum above 
charged as a fee is not unreasonable. 

Grant Goodrich. N. H. Purple. 

N. B. Judd. O. H. Browning. 

Archibald Williams. R. S. Blackwell. 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 169 

These signatures were probably not all appended 
at Bloomington, nor were these signers the only 
lawyers whom Lincoln consulted. Anxious to deal 
fairly with the company beyond the shadow of a 
doubt, he appealed to several other prominent attor- 
neys for their opinions. One of these, Mr, Koerner, 
who had enjoyed peculiar opportunities for reaching 
a judgment in the matter, says: "He wrote me a 
letter stating that as I knew all about the case, and 
had been present when it was argued, he would be 
obliged to me to give him my opinion whether his 
demand was unreasonable or not. He also stated 
that he had written to some other members of the 
bar, and he would be guided by our opinion. I ad- 
vised him that his charge was very unreasonable, 
and that he ought to have charged at least ten thou- 
sand dollars. I presume he received about the same 
answer from the other gentlemen." 

At all events, Lincoln's bill, as revised, was sent 
in. The company still refused payment, and there 
seemed but one course open to him. So he promptly 
brought suit, in McLean County Circuit Court, for 
the amount of his strangely amended reckoning, 
with costs. 

When the cause was reached for trial, before 
Judge Davis, on the morning of June 18, 1857, "the 
defendants," as the ancient judicial formula ex- 
presses it, "came not." A jury having been em- 
paneled, Mr. Lincoln briefly presented his case, and 
upon its verdict was awarded a judgment in full. 
By afternoon one of the company's general solici- 
tors, John M. Douglas, who had been delayed, ar- 



lyo HONEST ABE 

rived from Chicago, too late, of course, for the trial. 
Greatly disturbed by the embarrassing position in 
which the default placed him, he sought out Lincoln 
and begged to have the case reopened so that the 
corporation might have its day in court. This was 
readily consented to, the judgment was set aside, 
and a few days later the issue was again tried. On 
that occasion, Mr. Douglas called attention to the 
two hundred dollars paid four years previously as a 
retainer. It had been forgotten by Lincoln, who at 
once reduced his claim accordingly. So when the 
new jury brought in a second verdict, the figure stood 
at four thousand eight hundred dollars, and that 
amount, with costs, the defendant promptly paid.^° 
In justice to the Illinois Central Railroad Com- 
pany its own statement of this affair should not 
be overlooked. From an elaborately printed mono- 
graph, illustrated by reproductions of the documents 
in the case, and published within recent years, we 
quote what is offered as an official explanation: 
"The then general counsel of the road advised Mr. 
Lincoln that while he recognized the value of his 
services, still, the payment of so large a fee to a 
Western country lawyer without protest would em- 
barrass the general counsel with the board of direc- 
tors in New York, who would not understand, as 
would a lawyer, the importance of the case and the 
consequent value of Mr. Lincoln's services. It was 
intimated to Mr. Lincoln, however, that if he would 
bring suit for his bill in some court of competent 
jurisdiction, and judgment were rendered in his 
favor, the judgment would be paid without appeal." 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 171 

This version of the affair seems hardly convincing. 
The verdict of the trial court was, it is true, ac- 
cepted as final by the railroad officials; but they 
have left slender evidence on which to base the lat- 
ter-day inference that the suit was a mere formality, 
framed up between friends to guard against the 
censure of non-resident directors. The company's 
own exhibits, examined in the light of statements 
made by certain contemporary lawyers, lead one — 
with all candor be it said — to a contrary conclu- 
sion. Even the claim that amicable relations con- 
tinued uninterrupted, and that Lincoln acted as 
counsel for the railroad in several important matters 
thereafter, loses its force when one remembers his 
peculiar sweetness of character. He might well have 
conducted the suit, in serious earnest, without los- 
ing his temper or his client.^^ Indeed, it is difificult 
for us, after studying the man thus far, to conceive 
of him as really quarreling over a sum of money — 
large or small. And if, when enforcing the collec- 
tion of perhaps his biggest fee, he managed to take 
a somewhat arrogant patron into court without 
snapping delicate professional ties, the feat should 
be explained, not by the fanciful surmise that there 
was no cause of irritation between them, but rather 
by the fact that he was — Lincoln. ^^ 

This man, of all men, bringing suit to collect a 
disputed bill for his services, presents a spectacle 
which should be classed among the caprices of his- 
tory. It would have seemed more natural, by far, 
had the plaintiff's r61e in that action been filled by 
any one of the colleagues who certified to the fair- 



172 HONEST ABE 

ness of the claim. Though hardly a mercenary bar, 
the lawyers of the Eighth Judicial Circuit were 
largely, as the phrase goes, alive to the main chance. 
Not a few of them at this period laid up competen- 
cies ; while here and there an able practitioner man- 
aged to grow rich. The presiding judge himself, 
David Davis, — he who had lectured Lincoln on his 
"picayune charges," — possessed the true Midas 
touch. Yet the ample fortune which was eventually 
credited to him, as indeed much of the wealth 
amassed by the others, may be traced back to ac- 
tivities and speculations outside the law. Such 
modes of money-getting held no attractions for Lin- 
coln. His early misadventures in business had cured 
him of mercantile ambitions, and when friends pre- 
sented alluring opportunities for profitable invest- 
ments they were invariably declined. He might 
truly have replied as did Webster once, under simi- 
lar circumstances: "Gentlemen, if you have any 
projects for money-making, I pray you keep me out 
of them. My singular destiny mars everything of 
that sort, and would be sure to overwhelm your own 
better fortunes." 

In Lincoln's case, however, this unwillingness to 
seek revenues beyond the pale of the profession lay 
deeper than any mere question concerning profit or 
loss. The old-fashioned ideals, which debarred an 
advocate from pursuing any outside occupation of a 
gainful nature, had taken firm hold upon his convic- 
tions. Indeed, he carried to its extreme this aversion 
for hampering himself with whatever smacked of 
trade, going so far as to reject even the mint, anise, 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 173 

and cummin of related business that many able 
attorneys about him were glad to cull from adjacent 
fields. Accordingly, when some Springfield prop- 
erty had been levied upon, in a suit brought by Lo- 
gan and Lincoln, for certain wholesale merchants at 
Louisville, the junior partner thus curtly dismissed a 
request of their clients that they collect the rents 
which might accrue: "As to the real estate, we can- 
not attend to it as agents, and we therefore recom- 
mend that you give the charge of it to Mr. Isaac S. 
Britton, a trustworthy man, and one whom the Lord 
made on purpose for such business." ^^ 

Yet the man who wrote those lines was in debt. 
His situation, generally speaking, must have been 
far from prosperous. At about this very period, we 
find him frankly giving poverty as the reason for de- 
clining an invitation to visit Joshua F. Speed, whom 
he very much desired to see again. That dear friend, 
happily married and domiciled in the South, had 
been sending insistent messages to which Lincoln 
finally replied: "I do not think I can come to Ken- 
tucky this season. I am so poor, and make so little 
headway in the world, that I drop back in a month 
of idleness as much as I gain in a year's sowing." ^^ 

The writer — gaunt and grimly humorous — 
might well-nigh have gone as far as once did another 
threadbare limb of the law, who declared, " I am so 
poor, I do not make a shadow when the sun shines." 
Indeed, to complete the traditional picture of a 
needy barrister, Lincoln apparently lacked but one 
thing — a family. And so he married. Within a few 
months after the writing of that lugubrious message, 



174 HONEST ABE 

Mary Todd, a high-spirited, well-nurtured Ken- 
tucky lady, who was living with relatives in Spring- 
field, became his wife. Their marriage ceremony, 
conducted by the Reverend Charles Dresser accord- 
ing to the ritual of the Episcopal Church, appears to 
have been somewhat of a novelty in Springfield at 
that time. Certainly one of the guests was taken off 
his guard when he heard it. For as the bridegroom 
repeated after the rector, in an impressive manner, 
the formula, "With this ring I thee endow with all 
my goods and chattels, lands and tenements," Judge 
Thomas C. Browne, the Falstaff of the bench, stand- 
ing close to the high contracting parties, exclaimed : 
"Good gracious, Lincoln, the statute fixes all that!" 

This sage interruption was too much for the good 
minister's sense of humor, and some moments 
elapsed before he could proceed. ^^ One wonders 
whether, on the under side of his merriment, there 
may not have frolicked a suspicion that, had rite or 
statute been invoked, then and there, in the bride's 
behalf, she would have carried away but a slim en- 
dowment of worldly goods. On her part, moreover, 
the lady was apparently quite as poor as the man 
she married. For like many other wives whose 
mates have attained professional eminence, IVIary 
Todd brought her husband no fortune to paralyze 
his industry. 

The young couple would gladly have made a hon- 
eymoon journey to their native State and availed 
themselves of Speed's now repeatedly offered hospi- 
tality; but again, poverty stood in the way. They 
were fain, therefore, to content themselves with a 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 175 

room at Mrs. Beck's Globe Tavern, where the mu- 
nificent sum of four dollars paid their whole bill, each 
week, for board and lodging. This frugal arrange- 
ment lasted somewhat more than a year, after which 
the birth of their first child necessitated a change.'® 
So they bought from the Reverend Mr. Dresser his 
frame cottage, on the corner of Eighth and Jackson 
Streets, that was to serve them as a residence for the 
rest of their days in Springfield. It appears to have 
been a modest home among modest surroundings. 
Here the little family took root, here the problems 
of the growing household were worked out, and here 
Abraham Lincoln lived the simple life of an honest 
gentleman.'^ His personal wants were few, — so 
few, in fact, as to make him almost seem rich. He 
had no expensive habits and one looks in vain for 
what cynics sometimes term redeeming vices. A 
man whose parents were, to quote one old settler, 
"torn-down poor," does not enter upon life handi- 
capped by a love of luxury. In Lincoln's case the 
privations of earlier days had left him largely in- 
different even to such creature comforts as the re- 
finements of later times brought within reach. And 
though he rarely then referred to those trying back- 
woods experiences, the primitive ways instilled by 
them never quite got out of his system. Always in 
some degree a son of the soil, he consciously bore 
himself as belonging to "the plain people." It was 
the plain mode of living, therefore, that appealed to 
him, not only because the more elegant customs were 
distasteful, but also because he felt keenly aware of 
how incongruous they would have been with his real 



176 HONEST ABE 

self. Nor does the closest scrutiny reveal in all this 
any trace of affectation. The ostentatious display 
of poverty, on the one hand, and on the other, the 
vulgar mannerisms whereby our so-called self-made 
men sometimes make capital out of their lowly 
origins, were alike foreign to his nature. He was true 
here as elsewhere. In fact, when all is said, the man's 
simplicity of life must be counted but one more ex- 
pression of his inherent honesty. 

Lincoln made it a practice to serve himself. He 
really disliked to have others wait upon his wants. 
Self-reliant in the extreme, to go for a thing came 
easier with him than to send for it ; to do what was 
required seemed simpler than to order it done. He 
would walk to the house from the office for a docu- 
ment, though willing clerks were on hand eager to 
act as his messengers. If the open fire, at home or 
elsewhere, needed a fresh supply of fuel that did not 
happen to be promptly forthcoming, he took up 
the axe, shed his coat, and went vigorously to work 
over the woodpile. When a small stick was once 
wanted for some special purpose by a visitor at the 
Springfield residence, the master of the house fetched 
it after a brief session with his saw in the rear shed ; 
and when a surprised comment ensued, Lincoln 
laughingly replied : "We're not much used to serv- 
ants about this place. Besides, you know, I have 
always been my own wood-sawyer." ^^ 

The speaker was so little used to servants, in fact, 
that even when latterly they were at hand, he often 
opened the front door for visitors himself. This 
habit keenly annoyed Mrs. Lincoln, particularly as 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 177 

his attire on these occasions appears not always to 
have conformed with the conventional requirements 
laid down by authorities on etiquette. 

But once, when she was lamenting over certain 
social breaches of that kind, a member of her family 
said : "Mary, if I had a husband with a mind such as 
yours has, I would n't care what he did." 

To which the lady, much mollified, replied: "It is 
very foolish. It is a small thing to complain of." 

And what might one have expected of a man, who 
was not only his "own wood-sawyer," but his own 
stable-boy as well? For when at home, Mr. Lincoln 
usually, during that period, milked the cow, fed the 
horse, and looked after their several wants. In a 
rudely constructed little barn which stood behind 
the house. ^^ This same democratic simplicity and 
absence of all pretentions to elegance were observed 
about the untidy little offices in which he success- 
ively practiced his profession. Nor was it otherwise 
on circuit. The sorry nag that he sometimes be- 
strode and the shabby buggy In which the animal at 
other times pulled him from town to town looked 
consistent with the rest. When accommodations, 
moreover, at the local hotels were poor, — as they 
frequently appear to have been, — his easy-going 
temper remained unruffled. "He never complained 
of the food, bed, or lodgings," said Judge Davis. " If 
every other fellow grumbled at the blU-of-fare, which 
greeted us at many of the dingy taverns, Lincoln 
said nothing." ^° To which Joseph Gillespie, an- 
other friend of the old circuit days, adds: "He had a 
realizing sense that he was generally set down by 



178 HONEST ABE 

city snobs as a country Jake, and would accept, in a 
public-house, any place assigned to him, whether in 
the basement or the attic, and he seldom called at 
the table for anything, but helped himself to what 
was within reach. Indeed, he never knew what he 
did eat. He said to me once that he never felt his 
own utter unworthiness so much as when in the 
presence of a hotel clerk or waiter." ^^ 

It would be interesting to determine how much 
of this self-depreciation was due to the unfavorable 
impression that Lincoln often made upon those who 
saw him for the first time. By all accounts he must 
have been, in those days, anything but an object of 
beauty. His six-feet-four of homely, awkward angu- 
larity apparently owed little to the clothier's or the 
haberdasher's art. For in matters of dress as in 
other respects, he was still the plebeian, carrying 
about him, so to say, the broad-axe air which sug- 
gested, if it did not actually revive, the crudities of 
frontier customs. He no longer, it is true, wore, as 
in his youth, a coon-skin cap or birch-bark moc- 
casins with hickory soles. His shirts were no longer 
of linsey-woolsey, nor his trousers of butternut jeans 
or untanned skins. Yet he never quite outgrew the 
image of himself so arrayed. What appears to have 
been particularly vivid in his memory, moreover, 
was a picture of flat-boat times on the river, when 
his buckskin breeches — the only pair — happened 
to fall into the water with their owner inside of them. 
Relating such an experience once, he said: "Now, 
if you know the nature of buckskin, when wet and 
dried by the sun, it will shrink, and my breeches 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 179 

kept shrinking until they left several inches of my 
legs bare, between the tops of my socks and the 
lower part of my breeches ; and whilst I was grow- 
ing taller they were becoming shorter, and so much 
tighter that they left a blue streak around my legs 
that can be seen to this day." *^ 

Similar tendencies, in Lincoln's later, more mod- 
ern apparel, to leave a sort of neutral zone unoccu- 
pied between trousers and shoes, recurred with ata- 
vistic persistence long after he became accustomed 
to better things. In fact, such misfits troubled him 
but slightly during the period of his career at the bar. 
"He probably had as little taste about dress and 
attire as anybody that ever was born," writes one 
attorney who saw him often in those days. "He 
simply wore clothes because it was needful and cus- 
tomary. Whether they fitted or looked well was en- 
tirely above or beneath his comprehension." The 
same observer says: "When I first knew him his 
attire and physical habits were on a plane with 
those of an ordinary farmer. His hat was innocent 
of a nap. His boots had no acquaintance with black- 
ing. His clothes had not been introduced to the 
whisk-broom. His carpet-bag was well worn and 
dilapidated. His umbrella was substantial, but of a 
faded green, well worn, the knob gone, and the name 
*A. Lincoln' cut out of white muslin and sewed in 
the inside. And for an outer garment, a short cir- 
cular blue cloak, which he got in Washington in 
1849, and kept for ten years." ^^ 

Another friend and colleague, James W. Somers, 
recalling a first photographic glimpse of Mr. Lin- 



i8o HONEST ABE 

coin during the earlier days on circuit, said: "His 
dress was the most pecuHar thing about him. The 
trousers were several inches too short and illy fitted. 
The coat was the old-style swallow-tail, and was 
also too small. His head was surmounted by an 
antiquated silk hat, battered and rusty, as was his 
entire suit of broadcloth, originally black. In his 
hands or under his arm he carried a faded green 
gingham umbrella. He wore a black silk or mohair 
stock around his neck, two and a half or three inches 
wide, buckled at the back, but with no tie or bow in 
front. At the fall term court he usually wore a short 
circular cloak, extending down to the hips, and much 
the worse for wear." 

Disregard of fine apparel, moreover, was not lim- 
ited by any means to Lincoln's younger days at the 
bar. As late as 1858, after he had achieved a promi- 
nent place at the bar, his appearance made a similar 
impression upon Carl Schurz, who drew this graphic 
thumb-nail sketch of him: "On his head he wore 
a somewhat battered 'stove-pipe* hat. His neck 
emerged, long and sinewy, from a white collar turned 
down over a thin black necktie. His lank, ungainly 
body was clad in a rusty black dress-coat with 
sleeves that should have been longer; but his arms 
appeared so long that the sleeves of a 'store' coat 
could hardly be expected to cover them all the way 
down to the wrists. His black trousers, too, per- 
mitted a very full view of his large feet. On his left 
arm he carried a gray woolen shawl, which evidently 
served him for an overcoat in chilly weather. His 
left hand held a cotton umbrella of the bulging kind, 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 181 

and also a black satchel that bore the marks of long 
and hard usage." ^* 

Evidently the age or condition of a garment was 
no reason, in Lincoln's eyes, for discarding it. On 
the contrary, he appears at times to have cherished 
an old article of dress as one would an old friend. 
But such attachments have their penalties. And we 
find him in the court-room, — yes, on one occasion, 
in the very presence of the court, — making hasty 
repairs to ward off untoward accidents. Still other 
inconveniences grew out of Lincoln's inattention to 
dress. He had not been practicing long before his 
partner, Major John T. Stuart, received a retainer 
to defend one John W. Baddeley, against whom a 
suit was pending in the McLean County Circuit 
Court. When this case came to trial, the major, 
finding that he could not attend, sent the junior 
member of the firm, with a letter of introduction, 
to act as counsel in his stead. Baddeley gave one 
glance at the letter, and one at the ungainly, ill- 
dressed bearer of it. That a man who presented so 
unpromising an appearance should come offering to 
be his representative in the august precincts of the 
law irritated him beyond measure. He discharged 
a volley of abuse at the astonished Lincoln, paid his 
respects, in similar terms, to the absent Stuart, and 
straightway hired another lawyer, James A. Mc- 
Dougall, to defend the suit. What reply, if any, 
was made by the innocent object of all this wrath is 
not known. He endured it, we are told, however, 
without resentment; and later on, when these first 
unfavorable impressions had given place to warm 



i82 HONEST ABE 

appreciation, counted that very client among his 
stanchest admirers. ^^ 

Nor was Baddeley the only one to be deceived by 
Lincoln's unprepossessing garb. So keen an intellect 
as Edwin M. Stanton's wholly misjudged him, 
many years thereafter, on the occasion of their first 
meeting at Cincinnati, in the famous McCormick 
versus Manny reaper case; and that, too, notwith- 
standing the eminent position which the Springfield 
lawyer had by that time attained among his profes- 
sional brethren at home. For this critical associate 
could see no promise of forensic ability in the man, 
to whom he contemptuously referred as a "long, 
lank creature from Illinois, wearing a dirty linen 
duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspira- 
tion had splotched wide stains that resembled a map 
of the continent." ^^ Stanton's disdainful treatment 
rankled in the gentle soul of Lincoln. He began, 
some time after the affair, to wear better clothes — 
better in texture if not in fit. But he never learned 
to take an interest in fine linen, or to spend on his 
person more than was necessary to satisfy the ordi- 
nary demands of society. 

Thus much for the man's simple habits. A lawyer 
whose immediate wants were, all in all, so moderate, 
certainly had no personal incentive — whatever may 
have been his standards of honesty — for any but up- 
right methods in his practice. Like Manius Curius, 
over that historic dinner of turnips at the chimney- 
side, he prized honor with modest living above 
meretricious wealth and the luxuries it might buy. 

To assume, however, that there were not numer- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 183 

ous demands upon Lincoln for what money could 
procure, would be far from the fact. A kind husband 
and indulgent father, it distressed him to refuse his 
family anything. All their reasonable wants he did, 
in truth, cheerfully provide for, as she who knew 
him best bore affectionate testimony. And once, 
when he was contrasted in her presence with a cer- 
tain well-favored rival, the little wife retorted: 
"Mr. Lincoln may not be as handsome a figure, but 
the people are perhaps not aware that his heart is 
as large as his arms are long." 

Still, there were many who had good reason to be- 
lieve in such a consonance between length of limb 
and breadth of sympathy. Nor was their number 
limited, by any means, to those on whom, as we have 
seen, he conferred professional kindnesses. For 
others frequently felt the sustaining grip of that 
sinewy helping hand ; and the hospitality dispensed 
in the modest little home made a lasting impression 
upon the circle of friends, who were favored from 
time to time with coveted invitations. Then, too, 
among the uses that Lincoln had for money must be 
reckoned those numberless little charities which are 
of the same blood as great and holy deeds. A typ- 
ical instance, eloquent in its brevity, is supplied by 
a slip of paper, dated September 25, 1858. It reads: 

My old friend Henry Chew, the bearer of this, is 
in a strait for some furniture to commence house- 
keeping. If any person will furnish him twenty- 
five dollars' worth, and he does not pay for it by the 

1st of January next, I will. 

A. Lincoln. 



i84 HONEST ABE 

With this scrap has been preserved the obvious 
sequel : — 

Hon. a. Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois. 

My dear Friend: I herewith inclose your order 
which you gave your friend Henry Chew. You will 
please send me a draft for the same and oblige yours, 

S. Little. 

Urbana, February i6, 1859." 

Another generous act, of a different character, is 
gratefully recalled by an old resident of Spring- 
field, Dr. William Jayne. He tells how the "Phi 
Alpha" Society at Illinois College, in Jacksonville, 
arranged a series of lectures, the profits from which 
were to be expended on books for the library. One 
of the lecturers during 1857 was Mr. Lincoln. On 
the night of his appearance, after his address had 
been delivered, and the rather meager audience had 
departed, he said, with a kindly smile, to the presi- 
dent of the society: " I have not made much money 
for you to-night." 

At which the young officer who was in charge of 
the finances interposed: "When we pay for rent of 
the hall, music, and advertising, and your compen- 
sation, there will not be much left to buy books for 
the library." 

"Well, boys," replied Lincoln, "be hopeful. Pay 
me my railroad fare and fifty cents for my supper at 
the hotel, and we are square." ^^ 

The speaker's benevolence on other occasions 
must have been carried to extremes; for partner 
Herndon was repeatedly heard to murmur his dis- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 185 

approval and a student in their office reports him as 
saying: "Lincoln would n't have a dollar to bless 
himself with if some one else did n't look out for 
him. He never can say * No ' to any one who puts up 
a poor mouth, but will hand out the last dollar he 
has, sometimes when he needs it himself, and needs 
it badly." '' 

This view was apparently shared by the plucky 
little woman at home. She doubtless had found, 
as many housekeepers have before and since, that 
money should be conserved, not alone because of 
what it procures for people, but still more because 
of what it saves them from. The proverbial "rainy 
day," with its provident demands, was therefore 
frequently urged upon the attention of her open- 
handed helpmate without, however, appreciably 
modifying his habits in this regard. And when re- 
monstrance became too insistent, he replied: "Cast 
thy bread upon the waters." ^° 

That the lady preferred to make sure of bread 
upon the dining-room table is not surprising, nor 
should it be remembered to her discredit. Yet a cer- 
tain characteristic little scene between the two may 
not be omitted here; for, trivial though it seems, the 
incident throws a vivid side-light upon this phase of 
Lincoln's nature. The story was related to the au- 
thor by John F. Mendonsa, now of Jacksonville, 
Illinois. His father Antonio, a poor immigrant, after 
arriving in Springfield sometimes did odd jobs for 
the Lincolns. As the older man could not speak Eng- 
lish, he took the little son John with him to be his 
interpreter; and that boy never forgot the many 



i86 HONEST ABE 

kindnesses which he received from the master of the 
house. More than half a century has elapsed since 
then, yet among his most cherished recollections are 
these visits to Mr. Lincoln's home. 

Recalling the great man's manner, Mr. Men- 
donsa writes: "He would invariably walk up to fa- 
ther, shake his hand most cordially, and utter some 
little pleasantry which I would interpret. This in- 
terpretation seemed to amuse him very much. In 
every way he was most considerate. If the day was 
hot, the maid was instructed to prepare cooling re- 
freshments of some sort, and vice versa. Knowing 
our reduced circumstances, he would take me by the 
hand, after father had been paid, and place a quarter 
therein, saying, 'Sonny, take this to your mother to 
buy meat for dinner.'" 

The narrator goes on to say : — 

"At one time, during an extremely hot summer, 
father, my brother-in-law, and I went to the woods 
for berries. It was in July, 1856, and the berry sea- 
son was all but over. We got back to town at eleven 
A.M., having only three pints. My brother-in-law 
had two quarts. We took them to Lincoln's. Mrs. 
Lincoln met us and asked what we wanted for the 
berries. Father thought they should be worth fif- 
teen cents per quart, considering the scarcity of ber- 
ries and the length of time consumed — from four 
A.M. until eleven. Mrs. Lincoln thought this price 
outrageously high, and said she would not pay more 
than ten cents. Father had me explain our long 
walk through the heat, but she was inexorable. 

"We met Mr. Lincoln at the gate as we were leav- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 187 

ing. He asked us what we had to sell. I told him, 
and he said, 'Does n't Mrs. Lincoln want them?' 
* Yes, sir, but she will only allow father ten cents per 
quart, and he feels they're worth fifteen cents.' He 
patted me on the head, smilingly and said, 'Sonny, 
you tell your father we'll take them.' Mrs. Lincoln 
had joined us, and on hearing Mr. Lincoln's remark, 
said, 'No, we won't have them. I won't give that 
much for them.' And when she was angry, she 
screamed what she had to say. Mr. Lincoln quietly 
said, ' Mary, they have earned all they ask for them. 
Get me a pan in which to put them.' She refused, 
saying, 'No, I won't! I won't have them! I don't 
want them!' He then called to the maid. She 
brought a pan. He paid father twenty-five cents 
and brother-in-law thirty cents. He chatted awhile, 
and as he bade us good-bye, gave me a quarter, tell- 
ing me to be a good boy." ^^ 

But Lincoln, like the skillful tactician that he was, 
usually contrived to avoid so violent a clashing of 
wills. His method, on one occasion at least, seems to 
have foreshadowed the diplomatic triumphs of later 
times. What happened is related by the Chevalier 
Henry Haynie, who lived in Springfield during the 
old days. He was torch-bearer to a volunteer fire- 
company which needed a new hose-cart. Making a 
canvass for subscriptions among the citizens of the 
town, young Haynie and a fellow member called 
upon Mr. Lincoln. That gentleman at once ex- 
pressed his sympathy with the project, but thought 
it best, before setting down any amount, to consult 
"a certain little woman" about it. 



i88 HONEST ABE 

" I '11 do so, boys," he continued, "when I go home 
to supper, — Mrs. Lincoln is always in a fine, good 
humor then, — and I '11 say to her — over the toast 
— 'My dear, there is a subscription paper being 
handed round to raise money to buy a new hose- 
cart. The committee called on me this afternoon, 
and I told them to wait until I consulted my home 
partner. Don't you think I had better subscribe 
fifty dollars?' Then she will look up quickly, and 
exclaim, *0h, Abraham, Abraham! will you never 
learn, never learn? You are always too liberal, too 
generous ! Fifty dollars ! No, indeed ; we can't afford 
it. Twenty-five's quite enough.'" 

Mr. Lincoln chuckled, as he added: " Bless her dear 
soul, she'll never find out how I got the better of her; 
and if she does, she will forgive me. Come around 
to-morrow, boys, and get your twenty-five dollars." ^^ 

Fallible human nature, viewing this man's uncom- 
promising truthfulness with perhaps a trace of cha- 
grin, may derive some consolation from the thought 
that now and then, when domestic skies were over- 
cast, even he sought refuge in equivocation. His sin, 
on one occasion at least, speedily found him out, as 
he himself confessed by means of the characteristic- 
ally frank letter which follows: — 

Private. 

Springfield, Feb. 20, 1857. 

John E. Rosette, Esq. 

Dear Sir: — Your note about the little para- 
graph in the Republican was received yesterday; 
since when, till now, I have been too unwell to an- 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 189 

swer it. I had not supposed you wrote, or approved 
it. The whole originated in mistake. You know, by 
the conversation with me, that I thought the estab- 
lishment of the paper unfortunate; but I always ex- 
pected to throw no obstacle in its way, and to pat- 
ronize it to the extent of taking and paying for one 
copy. When the paper was first brought to my 
house, my wife said to me, * Now, are you going to 
take another worthless little paper?' I said to her 
evasively, I had not directed the paper to be left. 
From this, in my absence, she sent the message to 
the carrier. This is the whole story. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 5^ 

Meanwhile, there were other, far heavier drafts 
upon that meager purse. Its strings reached all the 
way to the little cabin on Goose Nest Prairie, in 
Coles County, where, after repeated migrations, 
Thomas and Sarah Lincoln had taken up their last 
abode. The family, or what remained of it, was not 
more prosperous then, we need hardly add, than of 
yore. In fact, financial embarrassments appear to 
have increased, and frequent were the calls upon 
Abraham for aid. How he responded may be in- 
ferred from what he once wrote to his stepbrother, 
John D. Johnston :" You already know I desire that 
neither father nor mother shall be in want of any 
comfort, either in health or sickness, while they 
live."s4 

A fitting pendant is furnished by a letter which 
had been sent to Thomas Lincoln, himself, some 
years previous. It read: — 



igo HONEST ABE 

Washington, December 24, 1848. 
My DEAR father: — Your letter of the 7th was 
received night before last. I very cheerfully send 
you the twenty dollars, which sum you say is neces- 
sary to save your land from sale. It is singular that 
you should have forgotten a judgment against you; 
and it is more singular that the plaintiff should have 
let you forget it so long, particularly as I suppose 
you always had property enough to satisfy a judg- 
ment of that amount. Before you pay it, it would be 
well to be sure you have not paid, or at least that you 
cannot prove that you have paid it. Give my love to 
mother and all the connections. 

Affectionately your son, 

A. Lincoln." 

When occasion served, moreover, the writer's cus- 
tomary contributions to the family fund were sup- 
plemented by the proceeds of some near-by case. 
This happened in 1845, when he won a Coles 
County slander suit that had been tried at Charles- 
ton. His client, in lieu of fees, assigned thirty-five 
dollars of the judgment to Mr. Lincoln, who, instead 
of collecting the money, instructed the clerk of the 
court to turn the entire sum, when it was received, 
over to his father. The old gentleman, they say, 
came in from Goose Nest Prairie, accompanied by 
his stepson, to get the present. And this took place 
at a time when fees were far from plentiful with the 
donor, whose total receipts for a term of court, as 
one of his partners states, did not, in some instances, 
exceed fifty dollars. 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 191 

More generous still was Lincoln's course in the 
matter of two hundred dollars which, it is said, his 
parents were sorely in need of. Having paid over the 
money, he determined to make sure that at least 
part of the property held by them should not slip 
through their fingers. To this end, forty acres of the 
home place were deeded to him by Thomas and 
Sarah, with a reservation to the efTect that the old 
folks should have ' ' entire control of said tract . . . 
during both and each of their natural lives." ^^ This 
was doubtless done, in the main, for the protection of 
his dearly beloved stepmother. To give her money 
or to supply her with comforts failed, as he thought, 
to balance the long account of affectionate service 
which stood between them. He went further, and 
secured her this piece of property at his expense for 
as long as she lived: secured it, indeed, against her 
own fond forgetfulness of self. For no sooner had 
Thomas Lincoln died than Sarah's own son, the 
good-natured, idle, happy-go-lucky John, tried to 
sell the place, and only Abraham's firmness in main- 
taining his rights as the owner kept the land under 
the old lady's feet. Still there was no ill-will between 
the brothers. When Johnston, who appears to have 
been perpetually impecunious, appealed for assist- 
ance on his own account, Lincoln usually responded 
with the desired funds. And once, when for obvious 
reasons the money was not forthcoming, a generous 
proposition accompanied the kindly refusal." This 
warm-hearted man, then, meeting the claims of the 
old home as well as of the new, smoothing out from 
year to year a coil of debts, and indulging his fancy, 



192 HONEST ABE 

at the same time, for occasional little acts of benevo- 
lence, might surely have used a much larger income 
to advantage. 

Yet apparently none of these demands upon Lin- 
coln's resources quickened in him, to the least de- 
gree, any tendency toward cupidity. Even certain 
notable ventures on the uncertain seas of politics, 
that brought up now and then, as we shall learn, 
financial straits, failed to disturb his perfect poise 
with regard to money matters. Nor did he attempt 
to better the range of his professional opportunities, 
and when Judge Grant Goodrich, one of the lead- 
ing Chicago lawyers, offered him a partnership in a 
highly lucrative practice, Lincoln declined the flat- 
tering proposal. He preferred his life on the circuit, 
with its freedom and smaller fees, to the grind of a 
wealth-producing hopper in that rapidly expanding 
city. As a result of all this Lincoln naturally failed 
to attain a competency. After more than twenty 
years of active practice at the bar, during which 
his services were eagerly sought for in the Federal 
Courts, as well as throughout the Eighth Judicial 
Circuit; after a record of labors unsurpassed, if in- 
deed it was equaled, by any of his contemporaries 
who attended the Illinois Supreme Court, the high- 
est appellate tribunal in the State; after enjoying 
a standing that brought him important cases to be 
tried in distant places, and retainers to appear be- 
fore the United States Supreme Court, — this pow- 
erful advocate, successful in every respect but one, 
closed his legal career a poor man. The circum- 
stance once led Judge Davis to remark: " I question 



DOLLARS AND CENTS 193 

whether there was a lawyer in the circuit who had 
been at the bar as long a time whose means were not 
larger." 

How much Lincoln might, then, be considered ac- 
tually worth, as the phrase goes, has been variously 
estimated. It is safe to say, however, that his estate 
consisted, for the most part, of his home with its con- 
tents at Springfield, a tract of land comprising one 
hundred and sixty acres in Crawford County, Iowa, 
granted by the United States Government for mili- 
tary service during the Black Hawk War, and a lot 
in the new town of Lincoln. ^^ If there were other 
similar possessions of importance, they must have 
escaped notice, and ready money was evidently far 
from plentiful. Mr. Lincoln, himself , rated his net 
assets, it is said, low enough. While in New York, 
during the month of February, i860, he met, so the 
story goes, one of his former Illinois friends, who, 
when questioned as to how the fickle goddess had 
treated him, replied that she had only yielded up 
one hundred thousand dollars. 

"Is n't that enough?" asked Lincoln. "I should 
call myself a rich man if I had that much. I 've got 
my house at Springfield and about three thousand 
dollars." 

Somewhat larger amounts figure in other versions 
of this interview, but at best the total sum must 
have been comparatively small. ^^ Indeed, such scat- 
tering indications as can now be collected all warrant 
the inference that a banker's balance-sheet, struck 
in those days between Mr. Lincoln's debits and cred- 
its, would have disclosed no very sizable net surplus. 



194 HONEST ABE 

But there is another system of accounting which 
results in quite a different showing. It deals not 
with dollars and cents, nor with real estate, nor se- 
curities; yet until this method too has been applied, 
no such appraisement can be deemed complete. Its 
values are expressed in terms of honor, its profits are 
to be found in the hearts of the people ; and by this 
reckoning, Abraham Lincoln's career at the bar was 
a brilliant success. He may, it is true, have had less 
property to show for all these years of toil than any 
of his colleagues; still, not one of them was so rich in 
the love and confidence of the entire region. The old 
circuit — judges, lawyers, and laymen — united to 
award him a prize that money cannot buy. They 
sent him out laden with the fine gold of a spotless 
reputation. They introduced him to the nation as 
their ideal of a true man, at a time when the true 
man was sorely needed; at a time when any but a 
true man placed where he was placed must have 
gone down in defeat with perhaps as great a cause as 
has ever been committed to a single champion ; and 
to this day, his name remains a synonym throughout 
the land for honest dealing. 



CHAPTER V 

HONESTY IN POLITICS 

SIDE by side with Lincoln's life at the bar ran a 
different yet kindred career — that of the politi- 
cian. These twin pursuits claimed him at almost the 
outset, as they claim so many men who enter upon 
the law. But in his case the customary order was 
reversed, for he had been elected to public office 
before he became a lawyer. 

Early during the spring of 1832, while still a clerk 
in Denton Offutt's grocery store at New Salem, Lin- 
coln announced himself to be an aspirant for elec- 
toral honors. How this came about is not without 
interest. According to his own explanation, offered 
in a little speech made at the time, he had been "so- 
licited by many friends" ^ to become a candidate for 
the State Legislature. The phrase doubtless passed 
more nearly at its face value on that occasion than is 
usual with such euphemisms of the stump. For in 
very truth, this young man — newcomer though he 
was, and but just past his twenty- third birthday — 
had won the good will of the people about him to 
a remarkable degree. Sunning themselves in the 
charm of his kindly nature, laughing at his jokes and 
applauding his feats of physical strength, admiring 
the scanty learning which he employed with so much 
common sense, and confiding, above everything, in 
an integrity that had already been subjected, as we 



196 HONEST ABE 

have seen, to numerous little tests, the voters of New 
Salem might well have "solicited" Lincoln to enter 
the political field. They had known him, it is true, 
less than nine months, but may not that brief period 
have teemed with as many experiences as ordinarily 
fill the corresponding number of years in more con- 
servative communities? For time seems measured 
by heartbeats, so to say, rather than by hours, when 
it is quickened with the stress and strain of life on 
a Western frontier. Under the primitive conditions 
that prevail there, elemental qualities push to the 
front, men stand revealed for what they really are, 
and true leadership comes speedily into its own. So 
the smiling young clerk, whose tall, angular form 
towered above Offutt's counter, impressed himself 
upon his customers as a suitable person to be en- 
trusted with the not too onerous duties of represent- 
ing them in the General Assembly. They had seen 
enough of him to believe that those ungainly lines 
overlay a group of faculties which might be relied on 
for effective political service; and, what was infin- 
itely more important, they felt assured that when- 
ever these faculties were exerted, they would move 
in harmony with the laws of honor. 

Honor, in the fine, exalted sense of the term, 
however, hardly entered at this time into the cal- 
culations of the New Salem constituents. No far- 
reaching moral principle apparently claimed their 
attention, and such interests as they had in that 
particular election itself were commonplace enough. 
The voters desired a member who could be trusted 
to look loyally, with unsoiled hands, after their ma- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 197 

terial needs at the State Capital. They wanted good 
faith there, rather than high ideals. The candidate 
— not less practical, for that matter, and a politi- 
cian true to type in the making — wanted an office. 
To say that he entered upon this initial canvass 
with any exceptionally lofty programme, is to anti- 
cipate the full-orbed halo of later days, at a period 
when only the first faint prophetic glow might, per- 
haps, now and then have been discernible. In sober 
truth, as Lincoln frankly explained, "Offutt's busi- 
ness was failing — had almost failed." ^ It would 
soon become necessary to find a new job, and the 
pay of a Representative, though limited to day's 
wages for short terms, with mileage, looked suffi- 
ciently inviting. Moreover, this call from "among 
his immediate neighbors," ^ to quote him again, 
touched perhaps the most vulnerable point in Abe's 
character — his personal ambition. The "last in- 
firmity of noble mind" may sometimes also be the 
first. From Lincoln's earliest youth the passion to 
surpass others had dominated him at every turn. 
Pitting his strength, whether of mind or body, 
against that of his associates, he had lost no oppor- 
tunity of excelling them, until it seemed almost sec- 
ond nature for this homely mixture of modesty and 
self-assertion, of good humor and mastery, to be- 
come the central figure in every group through which 
he moved. So confirmed grew these habits of lead- 
ership that as Lincoln reached manhood the craving 
for distinction, the aspiration to be big where once he 
had been little, must have entered into the very core 
of his being. It was not overstating the case, accord- 



198 HONEST ABE 

ingly, for him to tell his "fellow-citizens," in a 
printed address issued at the beginning of this can- 
vass: "Every man is said to have his peculiar ambi- 
tion. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, 
that I have no other so great as that of being truly 
esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself 
worthy of their esteem." ^ 

These phrases, stripped of their conventional 
wrappings, really meant that the writer had set his 
heart, above all things, upon popularity. 

The very intensity of such an aspiration must 
have put him severely to the test. How far he went 
in gratifying it, and to what extent, if any, inconven- 
ient moral scruples were allowed to impede his eager 
progress, are pertinent questions. Was he, in other 
words, under the absolute sway of the master pas- 
sion, as so many eager souls have been, or did an 
alert conscience at crucial points apply the control- 
ling brake? Conclusive answers to these queries can, 
we are aware, be given only after a survey of the 
man's entire career; yet back there, almost at the 
beginning of things, on the threshold, so to say, of 
his public life, one group of circumstances dimly 
prefigured, in a way, the whole story. 

When Lincoln essayed this first short flight into 
politics. Democratic men and measures were su- 
preme on well-nigh every hand. The reign of An- 
drew Jackson was at its height. Under his imperious 
leadership — he had just completed three years in 
the White House — "radical doctrines," so-called, 
commanded ever-increasing support; while his own 
magnetic personality attracted many followers who 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 199 

were as ardent in their support of him as they grew 
intolerant of those who opposed him. No predeces- 
sor had carried the rewarding of friends and the pun- 
ishing of enemies to such an extreme. Partisanship 
was in the saddle. Proscription became the order of 
the day. Taking their cue from the despotic decrees 
issued, time and again at Washington, the "whole- 
hog Jackson men," as the most zealous among the 
President's adherents were not inaptly called, sta- 
tioned themselves across the highways to prefer- 
ment and crushed out the political lives of candidates 
who failed to respond with the familiar shibboleths 
of the party. ^ When methods so coercive are pursued^ 
by a powerfully intrenched majority, place-hunters 
in great numbers throng to its standard. Their huz- 
zas may be heard above the voices of the faithful, 
and patronage, rather than political creed, directs — 
if indeed it does not control — the devious opera- 
tions of partisan machinery. Such was the scene 
that presented itself to the young Lincoln's anxious 
eyes, as he looked over this new, this untried field for 
a point of vantage from which a beginner might try 
his wings. 

Nor was the prospect nearer home essentially dif- 
ferent. There, too, the uncompromising Democracy 
that swayed so much of the country at large seemed 
all powerful. Illinois, in fact, was counted by this 
potent majority among its rock-ribbed strongholds, 
and though factional differences, from time to time, 
disturbed local harmony, the journalist who de- 
scribed "Jacksonism" as dominating that State 
with "the strength of Gibraltar," ^ hardly overdrew 



200 HONEST ABE 

the picture. Sangamon County, it is true, contained 
a considerable number who did not favor the Presi- 
dent, yet even there his majorities were decisive. So, 
all in all, an ambitious tyro, making a maiden appeal 
to the voters of that district from the obscure little 
village of New Salem, had every incentive, appar- 
ently, for enrolling himself in the ranks of these 
triumphant Democrats. 

Such a course would not have run counter one 
whit to Lincoln's early sympathies. His father, we 
are told, was a Democrat, or a Democratic Republi- 
can, to use the older designation; his own youthful 
associations had been largely with people of the same 
stripe; and, like many other lads of the period, he 
regarded the picturesque chieftain of the party with 
a personal admiration which neither time nor po- 
litical changes wholly effaced.^ But as Abraham 
reached manhood, a greater statesman — greater 
in not a few requisites of leadership — had at- 
tracted his favor; and he found himself, ere long, 
at one with those who were enlisted under the ban- 
ner of Henry Clay. 

That eminent campaigner's personality capti- 
vated the younger man's imagination. It presented 
a magnet to which the true metal in Lincoln's nature 
could not but respond. There were elements, more- 
over, in "gallant Harry's" character, no less than 
in his achievements so far as they had then been 
unfolded, that compelled profound respect. Clay's 
early poverty, of which no sordid traces were percep- 
tible in a singularly winning presence, his breadth of 
human sympathy and largeness of vision, a chival- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 201 

rous manner that accorded well with an ardently 
sanguine temperament, his unswerving integrity with 
regard to pecuniary matters, the lofty standard that 
he had set himself for the practice of his profession 
as a lawyer, his equally lofty standards of public 
duty, — then still unshaken by the shifts of a be- 
guiling ambition, — the splendid courage, not to say 
genius, with which he rose to the demands of great 
political occasions, a generous patriotism that in- 
spired him to carry peace-winning concessions across 
the barriers raised by conflicting parties, his steadily 
expanding record which at every turn, whether in 
the Kentucky Legislature, the United States Senate, 
the House of Representatives, the Speaker's chair, 
the diplomatic service, or the President's Cabinet, 
had thus far been marked by the elan and dash of a 
brilliant intellect, an eloquence that baffled descrip- 
tion, yet left his audiences for the rest of their days 
under the spell of its witchery, — all this and more 
had brought Lincoln to a point well-nigh bordering 
upon hero-worship. 

Naturally, so strong a preference for "the Great 
Commoner" himself extended, in a way, to his pub- 
lic policies. Clay's political programme, comprising 
by that time three notable issues, — the demands 
for a federal bank, a high protective tariff, and a 
continental scheme of internal improvements, — 
may also be said to have left its impress upon Lin- 
coln's mind. He was not deeply concerned, it is 
true, during those callow days, with national ques- 
tions; yet so far as he held any views on such mat- 
ters, they favored "Clay's American System" and 



202 HONEST ABE 

the principles generally of the National Republican 
Party. 

So it happened that when Lincoln came to make 
his first political campaign, he enlisted on the 
weaker side. "An avowed Clay man," to quote the 
candidate himself, he declared for a leader who, with 
all his attainments, had already been severely routed 
in a contest for the Presidency, and what is more, 
who was destined to encounter still further disasters 
of the same nature. Yet no heroics, no fine flourish 
of trumpets, so far as is known, accompanied this 
decision. A poor, obscure young man, in need of an 
ofiice and eager for distinction, was merely following 
his convictions rather than his apparent interests by 
enrolling himself under colors doomed to repeated 
reverses, and in opposition to the most ruthlessly 
intolerant majority that the political processes of 
the country had thus far evolved. The result must 
have been a foregone conclusion. Lincoln's canvass 
came to grief. Commenting on the episode, twenty- 
eight years later, in that brief autobiography written 
as the basis for a "campaign life," he said: "This 
was the only time Abraham was ever beaten on a 
direct vote of the people." ^ 

And even that beating looks now, iri certain re- 
spects, more like a victory than a defeat. Lincoln did 
not, it is conceded, prevail at the polls; but in one of 
those astonishing reversals whereby the X-ray of 
history sometimes reveals material failure to be spir- 
itual success, this experience should rank among his 
greatest triumphs. 

There was another reason, less obscure at the 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 203 

moment, for not regarding the campaign as wholly 
disastrous. It established Lincoln's claim to polit- 
ical consideration by a remarkable circumstance. 
Although he failed to receive the requisite number 
of votes throughout the county, — standing eighth 
on the list of thirteen candidates who ran, — his own 
neighbors in the precinct which contained New 
Salem gave him 277 marks out of the entire 290 
recorded for Representatives.^ The full significance 
of these figures can be appreciated only after it is 
added that the same citizens, a few weeks later, cast 
115 more votes for General Jackson's Presidential 
electors than they gave to Mr. Clay's;' and further, 
that this well-nigh unanimous support of their 
youthful townsman, without regard to his politics, 
was bestowed during a period noted in our annals 
for its intensely bitter partisanship. Explaining the 
phenomenon, many years thereafter, another prom- 
ising young politician of 'those days, wrote: " The 
Democrats of New Salem worked for Lincoln out of 
their personal regard for him. That was the general 
understanding of the matter here at the time. In 
this he made no concession of principle whatever. 
He was as stiff as a man could be in his Whig doc- 
trines. They did this for him simply because he was 
popular — because he was Lincoln." ^° 

Because — the writer might have continued — 
they had weighed and measured Offutt's clerk, while 
he was weighing and measuring commodities behind 
the grocery-store counter; because — what is still 
more to the purpose — both sets of accounts, how- 
ever dissimilar they must have seemed in the mak- 



204 HONEST ABE 

ing, tallied peculiarly with each other in the final 
reckoning. And when, with almost one accord, the 
Democrats among these people who knew the candi- 
date best threw party obligations aside to register 
their approval of him at the polls, they placed on 
record the first notable judgment passed by the vot- 
ing public upon his character. Favorable verdicts 
without number have been passed upon politicians, 
great and small. Merely national reputations are 
as common among them as printer's ink is pur- 
chasable. But one must search well through our 
whole list of eminent statesmen to find the few 
who achieved, at any time in their careers, what 
Lincoln started with — an almost perfect reputa- 
tion at home. 

Nor was this big local vote the only expression of 
confidence in the "avowed Clay man" manifested 
by Jacksonians during those militant days. Before 
another summer arrived, he had received an appoint- 
ment from "Old Hickory" himself, as the reader 
will remember, to the postmastership at New Salem; 
and soon thereafter, John Calhoun, the surveyor for 
Sangamon County, an ardent local Administration 
leader, made him, it may also be recalled, one of his 
deputies. That these politicians — high and low — 
should so far forego the fruits of the spoils system, 
looks creditable not only to the object of their lenity, 
but to themselves as well. Still, in the case of the 
President, it may be doubted whether much atten- 
tion was paid to the act which bestowed upon this 
obscure appointee an equally obscure office. 

The place could hardly have been of less conse- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 205 

quence. How insignificant it really was can be ap- 
preciated only when we bear in mind that a far from 
regular mail service, scheduled for twice a week, suf- 
ficed to meet the needs of this sparsely settled dis- 
trict; and that even then the high rate of postage, 
not to mention the low rate of scholarship, kept the 
business transacted there within meager bounds. 
Indeed, tradition goes so far as to picture Lincoln 
carrying the office, for the most part, "in his hat." 
Under its ample crown letters or papers addressed to 
outlying settlers are said to have been snugly tucked 
away until opportunities came for making deliver- 
ies — rural free deliveries, we should call them to- 
day — at people's doors. ^^ This conscientious young 
postmaster may therefore be credited with having 
anticipated by more than sixty years a now highly 
esteemed branch of the postal service. Nor did his 
usefulness cease there. If the recipient of a letter 
was, as not infrequently happened, illiterate, Abe's 
ability to read and write was promptly called into 
play. If, on the other hand, our postman brought a 
newspaper, he usually came prepared to discuss its 
contents. For the privilege of reading before deliv- 
ering all printed matter that passed through his 
hands appears to have been a cherished perquisite of 
the office. Lincoln certainly made the most of it. 
Too poor to subscribe himself for the various "or- 
gans" which professed to reflect, inform, and guide 
public opinion, he read with avidity such of them as 
appeared in the New Salem mails. This practice 
laid the foundation, so to say, of his political educa- 
tion. Indeed, what he was taught by these sheets 



2o6 HONEST ABE 

during the three years in which he held the post 
constituted perhaps Lincoln's most valued returns 
from an otherwise poorly paid occupation. ^^ 

The office of deputy surveyor for Sangamon 
County, on the other hand, was more lucrative and 
of far greater importance: so much so, in fact, that 
Lincoln hesitated to accept it at the hands of an offi- 
cial whose politics were of the opposite stripe. True, 
he needed a job, just then, with a good day's pay 
attached, if any man ever did ; but '*man" — that is 
to say this kind of man — "doth not live by bread 
alone," nor is he content to live in pursuit of bread 
alone, when to do so brings his sincerity into ques- 
tion. Lincoln's first impulse had been to decline 
Calhoun's offer. It came through a common friend, 
Pollard Simmons, who, at the surveyor's request, 
had hastened from Springfield to New Salem with 
a tender of the appointment. Elated over what he 
regarded as Lincoln's good fortune, Simmons — so 
the story goes — sought him out in the woods, where 
he was splitting rails, and told the glad news. It did 
not meet with the reception that the messenger had 
anticipated. So, sitting down together upon a log, 
they discussed the proposition from their conflicting 
points of view. To Abe's mind, after a momentary 
flush of pleased surprise, two drawbacks presented 
themselves. He had no knowledge of surveying, and 
he would not tamper with his political principles to 
secure a berth however soft. The one obstacle a lit- 
tle study might, of course, remove. But how about 
the other? So they talked it all over until Lincoln 
finally said : " If I can be perfectly free in my political 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 207 

action, I will take the office; but if my sentiments, or 
even expression of them, is to be abridged in any 
way, I would not have it or any other office." ^* 

When the speaker presented himself, a few days 
later, before the surveyor in Springfield, all of his 
objections were, as we have seen, brushed aside. 
Calhoun needed an able man of unquestioned integ- 
rity — needed him more, at that particular time, 
than the Democratic Party needed recruits. How he 
assisted Lincoln to master the rudiments of survey- 
ing, and how fully he guaranteed him his political 
independence, have already been told. To what a 
remarkable degree, moreover, this strangely chosen 
deputy justified the other's confidence has also been 
pointed out. It only remains to be said that, though 
most of the incidents which flecked John Calhoun's 
eventful career have been forgotten, he still abides 
in our memories as the politician who, when seeking 
a trustworthy assistant, could see through the mists 
of partisan prejudice clearly enough to appraise 
Abraham Lincoln, thus early, at his true worth. 

The holding of these two places under the Jack- 
sonian regime had no ill-effects — interesting to re- 
late — upon the young * ' Clay man's ' ' standing. His 
political sincerity apparently remained unques- 
tioned. What was more, the good account that he 
gave of himself as a public servant, and the enlarged 
opportunities offered by those offices, — each in 
its own way, — contributed not a little toward the 
growth of an ever-increasing popularity. It is hardly 
surprising, therefore, to find him at the next elec- 
tion, in the summer of 1834, making another, and 



2o8 HONEST ABE 

that time successful, canvass for the State Legisla- 
ture. The Hst of candidates was as long as it had 
been two years before. Yet of the four who were 
now elected, Lincoln, running but fourteen votes 
behind the leader, received the second highest 
number cast.^^ 

For this splendid victory he was again largely in- 
debted to Democratic favor. In fact, prominent 
members of the opposing party had gone so far as 
to ofifer him their formal endorsement, — an honor 
which, after some hesitation and several anxious con- 
sultations with his colleagues on the ticket, Lin- 
coln had accepted. There is no reason to infer that 
in so doing he had taken any unfair advantage of 
them, as has been suggested, or that his political 
principles had undergone any trimming whatsoever 
in the acquisition of this alien support. How it came 
about is obvious enough. The same confidence and 
good will which New Salem, regardless of party, had 
manifested toward him to so notable an extent at the 
preceding election, should merely be credited with 
having spread, during the intervening two years, 
though in a lesser degree, perhaps, through Sanga- 
mon County. That section, moreover, so far as local 
politics went, was giving a gracious hearing at the 
time to new ideas and new leaders. Under the influ- 
ence of certain able young tacticians with whom Lin- 
coln had become associated, Jacksonism itself grew 
less rampant in the county. There, as elsewhere, the 
swift alchemy of popular enthusiasm was at work, 
fusing hitherto unrelated elements into a novel polit- 
ical unit, and by a coalition of Clay's followers with 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 209 

other anti-Jackson factions, helping to form a great 
national fellowship — the American Whig Party. 
It was as an exponent of this vigorous though un- 
tried organization that the Representative- elect 
from New Salem took his seat in the Ninth General 
Assembly. 

Those must have been strenuous days. The Whigs 
were in a minority; yet they began, from the fall of 
the gavel, to exert an influence upon legislation out 
of all proportion to their numbers. This required 
skillful team-play, and the leaders were doubtless 
wary of employing novices. At any rate, no impor- 
tant part on the programme, so far as now appears, 
was entrusted to Lincoln. His appointment to the 
Committee on Public Accounts and Expenditures 
seems appropriate enough, in view of the sobriquet 
with which he had entered the House ; but the trans- 
actions of that committee afforded him slender scope, 
if the record may be followed, for displaying finan- 
cial honesty or, in fact, honesty of any sort. Nor 
was he more active during this first session in general 
legislation. Several bills of no great moment, service 
on a few select committees, occasional routine mo- 
tions, the presentation of an unsuccessful petition, 
and a resolution concerning monies received from 
the sales of public lands apparently made up the sum 
of his doings on the floor. For the rest, as behooved 
a fledgling, he kept modestly in the background. By 
the time this Legislature reassembled, however, at 
the special session of 1835-36, Lincoln's downright 
sincerity, his homely common sense, and a certain 
capacity for parliamentary work began to dawn 



210 HONEST ABE 

upon his colleagues. He attracted favorable notice 
too, some say, by the zeal with which he labored, 
when the legislative districts were reapportioned 
that winter, toward securing for Sangamon a con- 
siderable increase of representation. Under the law 
then passed, his county, though not the most popu- 
lous in the State, was awarded the heaviest member- 
ship in the House of Representatives. So that its 
delegation to the General Assembly became enlarged 
from four members in the House and two in the Sen- 
ate to seven in the House and two in the Senate — 
changes which were destined to exert a memorable 
influence upon the political history of Illinois as well 
as upon the fortunes of Abraham Lincoln. 

His popularity among the people had meanwhile 
suffered no diminution. They liked him, trusted him, 
and now some of them felt grateful toward him. It 
was to a pleased constituency, therefore, from more 
than one point of view, that he appealed during 
the following summer for reelection. The contest ap- 
pears to have been warmly waged on every side, and 
though the enlarged list of candidates included sev- 
eral doughty campaigners, — Democrats as well as 
Whigs, — Lincoln regained his seat with the highest 
vote given by Sangamon to any nominee for the 
House of Representatives. What is more, the entire 
legislative ticket of the new party in that district 
was elected. The Whigs, by a signal victory, had 
revolutionized the neighborhood ; and so complete — 
we may add in passing — was their triumph through- 
out the county that the control which they then 
gained over its affairs could at no time, during sev- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 211 

eral succeeding decades of Democratic ascendancy 
elsewhere in the State, be successfully disputed there. 
Clean sweeps presuppose stalwart brooms. The 
newly elected Sangamon Representatives, together 
with the Senators who held over, did in fact make a 
notable group of men. They were as tall as they 
were vigorous. Their average weight is said to have 
exceeded two hundred pounds, and their average 
height six feet. When they appeared at Vandalia 
for the session of 1836-37, some wag dubbed them 
the "Long Nine" — an appellation that stuck. For 
even in the capital of a State dedicated, as the In- 
dian tradition has it, to "superior men," their ap- 
pearance no less than their achievements attracted 
attention. The stature, moreover, which one of these 
tall politicians eventually attained in the world's his- 
tory lends peculiar interest to the whole coterie. On 
that account, if on no other, a chronicle of his doings 
would seem incomplete without the names of those 
eight colleagues. They comprised, in the House, 
John Dawson, Ninian W. Edwards, Robert L. Wil- 
son, Daniel Stone, William F. Elkin, and Andrew 
McCormick; in the Senate, Archer G. Herndon and 
Job Fletcher, Sr. These men, fresh from the exalta- 
tion of a thoroughgoing party victory, took their 
seats in the Legislature with the avowed purpose of 
accomplishing great things. And they had need 
of all their courage. The particular task which 
awaited them was no easy one. They were expected 
to capture the State Capital for Sangamon County 
by having the seat of government transferred from 
Vandalia to Springfield. 



212 HONEST ABE 

The management of this enterprise was entrusted 
to Lincoln. He had then already evinced some of the 
qualities that go to make a political leader, and his 
associates in the "Long Nine," as if by common con- 
sent, looked to him for guidance. But the honor was 
apparently not welcome just then. Suffering from 
illness and from one of those attacks of morbid de- 
pression that at times possessed him, he entered 
upon the session, unlike the others, in no conquering 
mood. Nevertheless, under his direction the San- 
gamon delegation straightway began a spirited cam- 
paign to the greater glory of Springfield. That town 
was not by any means the favorite among some half- 
dozen places which actively aspired to the capital 
prize. ^^ Yet so vigorously were its claims put forth 
that competitors came to regard it as their most for- 
midable rival, and for a time the contest looked as if 
all the other municipalities in the field were com- 
bined against this one. 

The odds bore heavily against the "Long Nine" 
— so heavily that some of the big men, at critical 
points in the unequal, at times well-nigh futile, 
struggle, lost heart. But their leader did not flinch. 
What might have dismayed more seasoned parlia- 
mentary chieftains merely stimulated Lincoln to 
renewed efforts. He seemed prepared to stake the 
entire session, if necessary, upon the success of the 
Springfield project. That measure was, in fact, 
thrown into the scales whenever the advocates of 
pending legislation sought Sangamon support. 

And such calls came frequently enough, because 
well-nigh every member of this remarkable Assem- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 213 

biy had his own particular interest to serve. It took 
the form, generally speaking, of some scheme for 
so-called "internal improvements," whereby the 
politicians tried to satisfy a mania for overnight 
development that had recently obsessed the inhab- 
itants of the State — a mania which was now about 
to reach its culmination in a series of extravagant 
enactments. One eager statesman came charged by 
his constituents with the duty of securing a railroad; 
another must obtain an appropriation for a canal, 
another a State road ; still another was under orders 
to have this stream or that made more widely navi- 
gable; and so on through the whole range of pub- 
lic betterments. A hungrier crowd of the people's 
chosen Representatives has seldom been seen to 
clamor around the "pork barrel." It seemed as if 
each man's political life depended upon securing and 
carrying home a generous helping. To that end, 
other interests were freely sacrificed, while "log-roll- 
ing," as the expressive idiom for the trading of votes 
sometimes phrased it, became the order of the day. 
Few if any among these struggling legislators ap- 
pear to have marketed their influence more profit- 
ably than did the members from Sangamon County ; 
and the most able "log-roller" in even that profi- 
cient band is said, beyond a question, to have been 
Abraham Lincoln. Maneuvering his followers so 
as to take advantage of every turn, arraying their 
united strength solidly for or against the designs 
of other delegations, as those delegations declared 
themselves during the preliminary skirmishes to be 
allies or opponents of Springfield, winning over some 



214 HONEST ABE 

members by appeals to personal interests, others by 
appeal to sheer good-fellowship, — adroit, tireless, 
unruffled, — Lincoln at last surmounted all obsta- 
cles, and brought this unique campaign to a trium- 
phant finish. The "Long Nine" won. Springfield 
carried the day, and by a joint vote of both houses, 
in the closing days of the session, that town became 
their choice for the permanent capital of Illinois. 

Great was the rejoicing throughout the Sangamon 
region over this achievement. And no less elated — 
need we add? — were the citizens of the little prairie 
burg so suddenly raised to prominence. They wel- 
comed the returning delegation as they might have 
welcomed a band of conquering heroes. Nothing 
was too good in Springfield for the men who had 
brought it this coveted civic honor. Members of the 
"Long Nine" were feted and lauded on every hand, 
while their leader particularly came in for grateful 
attentions. At one complimentary dinner sixty 
guests are said to have joined in the toast: "Abra- 
ham Lincoln: He has fulfilled the expectations of his 
friends and disappointed the hopes of his enemies. "^^ 

But "his enemies," or, more correctly speaking, 
the enemies of Springfield, were still, in a way, to be 
reckoned with. Some of them took their defeat 
hard. They affected to believe, if they did not indeed 
actually believe, that the Sangamon interest had 
won unfairly. In fact, above the notes of triumph 
with which the victors celebrated their joyful home- 
coming might be heard the discordant voices of these 
chagrined opponents, charging trickery and corrup- 
tion. 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 215 

The brunt of such assaults naturally fell upon Lin- 
coln. He it was who had guided the activities of the 
"Long Nine," and against him were now directed 
the severest blows of their assailants. Yet the San- 
gamon chief, by all accounts, proved equal to the 
occasion. Whenever his conduct or that of his col- 
leagues in the contest for the Capital was publicly 
attacked, he is said to have replied with telling 
effect — so much so, in truth, that before long all 
detractors were silenced, efforts to repeal the act 
failed, and the Springfield forces, rejoicing in Lin- 
coln's prowess, remained undisputed masters of the 
situation. ^^ They applauded without stint, as might 
have been expected, the man to whom this was 
mainly due; but their enthusiastic approval of him 
is not by any means the last word. 

His course throughout the affair can hardly be 
deemed creditable in every particular. The trading 
of votes between lawmakers may be defensible, 
perhaps, under certain rare, not to say peculiar, 
circumstances. Still, as such transactions are usu- 
ally conducted, the practice calls for condemnation. 
And when a group of Representatives, like the 
"Long Nine," go so far as to traffic through an en- 
tire session in one concerted effort to secure the pass- 
age of a bill for the special benefit of their constitu- 
ents, the proceeding becomes grossly reprehensible. 
In this bargain and sale of legislation, the extrava- 
gant expenditure of public money is not by any 
means the most pernicious feature. Among men so 
engaged, votes speak louder than conscience, — yes, 
louder, on occasion, than all the Ten Command- 



2i6 HONEST ABE 

ments taken together. For your true "log-rollers" 
are prone — if we may paraphrase the words of a 
famous statesman — to consider themselves in poli- 
tics, not in ethics. Their first few lapses from correct 
parliamentary principles open the way too often for 
further and still further deviations, until the stand- 
ards of nearly a whole legislature seem warped out 
of their accustomed grooves ; an indefinable laxness 
creeps into actions which have no concern what- 
ever with these "log-rolling" measures, and the 
let-down in moral tone, brought about by repeated 
departures from the loftier plane of disinterested 
lawmaking, hardly stops short, at times, of general 
demoralization. To what extent this actually hap- 
pened in the Tenth General Assembly of Illinois is 
not now definitely known. But prevailing conditions 
there were manifestly far from ideal ; and as some 
of the fault, at least, was chargeable to the "Long 
Nine," he who stood at their head must take his 
share of the blame. 

In fairness to Lincoln, however, it should be said 
— for what such a plea is worth — that any idea 
of wrongdoing probably never entered the young 
man's mind. He and his colleagues had merely pur- 
sued tactics tolerated, if indeed they were not sanc- 
tioned, by the customs of the period. During those 
raw pioneer days, not a few politicians looked upon 
votes as legitimate objects of barter; and to so fla- 
grant an extreme, it will be remembered, were their 
views carried in the Illinois Legislature of 1836-37, 
that the Assembly became a veritable market-place. 
Amidst this whirl of chaffering the member from 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 217 

New Salem was seen to move with steady tread. 
True, he had shown himself to be a poor business 
man at home; yet here his faculty for one peculiar 
kind of commerce apparently fell little short of 
genius. So it turned out that when the last trade 
was made, when the deals had all been closed, and 
Speaker Semple's gavel sounded for final settle- 
ments, the big winning was disclosed — as we have 
seen — in Lincoln's grasp. Then it was that his 
defeated antagonists set up those cries of outraged 
virtue. Then only did they discover the depths of 
moral turpitude into which he had fallen. But their 
censure came with painfully diminished effect from 
men who had themselves employed, though unsuc- 
cessfully, the very methods for which they now con- 
demned him; and one is curious to know by what 
system of ethical adjustments they thought to recon- 
cile their own acts with these tardy expressions of 
principle. In any event, the accusers may be said 
to have come into court, as the phrase goes, with 
unclean hands — at least, with hands no cleaner 
than those of the associate whom they denounced. 
Indeed, when all is said, the head and front of his 
offending, as far as these angry politicians were con- 
cerned, will be found to lie in the fact that he had 
beaten the gentlemen at their own game. 

Here again let the chronicle do justice to Lincoln. 
He had indeed played this game — if game it may 
be called — for all that was in him, but he certainly 
had not evinced the reckless disregard of public in- 
terests that the fault-finding losers tried to lay at 
his door. On the contrary, he believed himself to 



2i8 HONEST ABE 

have been serving the whole State, no less than 
Springfield, with every trade whereby the "Long 
Nine," in exchange for what they wanted, lent their 
votes and their influence, as has just been narrated, 
to establish a comprehensive, if lavish, system of 
"internal improvements." Such undertakings had, 
in fact, engaged Lincoln's imagination from the very 
beginning of his public life. Pledged to them, in a 
sense, and convinced of their value, he aimed at 
associating himself in the West, as other politicians 
had done elsewhere through the country, with some 
splendid scheme for public development. It was dur- 
ing this period that Lincoln, emulating the exam- 
ple of the man to whom the Empire State was 
chiefly indebted for its Erie Canal, confided to his 
friend Joshua F. Speed an ambition to make himself 
"the De Witt Clinton of Illinois." '^ The aspira- 
tion looks futile enough now in the light of what 
ensued. Still, at that time all observers, with rare 
exceptions, confidently expected to see this single 
Legislature, by passing a series of Utopian enact- 
ments, swing the young prairie Commonwealth 
into a millennium of prosperity; while the politi- 
cians, regardless of party, outvied one another in do- 
ing the people's bidding. Demands for these won- 
der-working measures were heard on every side. An 
influential lobby invaded the capital to urge their 
adoption. Petitions poured in upon the members. 
Their newspapers from home came full of buoyant 
— not to say flamboyant — articles advising liberal 
action. Mass meetings and conventions, voicing the 
general infatuation with sonorous resolutions, went 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 219 

so far as to issue parliamentary orders to their 
Representatives. In fact, the Sangamon delegation 
itself had been instructed by citizens of the county 
assembled at such a gathering to give the much- 
discussed "system" unqualified support. Obviously, 
therefore, when Lincoln exchanged improvement 
votes for Springfield votes, he put a price upon aid 
which would finally have been given, in any event. 
Circumstances merely enabled him, as he doubtless 
thought, to serve his constituents, indeed the whole 
State, by what he gave no less than by what he re- 
ceived. And if his tactics deftly took toll of legis- 
lation going, so to say, as well as coming, the proc- 
ess was, in its political aspect, at least, consistent 
enough. From all of which, those who cannot bear 
to contemplate a good man overstepping the narrow 
path ever so little will derive such comfort as they 
may; while others who seem inclined to insist upon 
a hero, immaculate no less than great, must bring 
themselves to realize that the best of men are some- 
times — particularly during their formative years 
— seen to walk in the shadows. 

This one cloud, moreover, on Lincoln's early polit- 
ical record was not without the proverbial silver 
lining. " Honest Abe's " better self still held sway. 
Indeed, ideals of public service as he then conceived 
them were never quite lost sight of, even amidst the 
temptations incident to a fiercely waged parliamen- 
tary campaign. His fault began and ended with the 
trading of votes. Beyond that, neither the low-lev- 
eled practices which prevailed on every hand, nor the 
pressure of colleagues, eager to triumph at any cost, 



220 HONEST ABE 

could carry him. The Machiavellian doctrine that 
victory brings glory, whatever the method of achiev- 
ing it, evidently formed no part of the creed which 
directed his "log-rolling" ambitions. And, ardently 
as he longed to win the day for Springfield, no ques- 
tionable proposals, however alluring, were allowed 
to blunt in any further degree his fine sense of moral 
values. 

A notable instance, aptly illustrating this, oc- 
curred when the struggle over the seat of govern- 
ment was at its height. An effort had been made to 
combine the friends of removal with those who were 
laboring for a certain measure of dubious character. 
What that measure entailed is not now definitely 
known, but Lincoln regarded it with strong disap- 
proval. He had so expressed himself and the negoti- 
ations languished. At last, a number of Represen- 
tatives, who were severally interested on both sides 
of the projected deal, met to discuss it in a private 
caucus. Their deliberations lasted, we are told, 
nearly all night ; yet as the Sangamon leader refused 
to forego his objections, they finally adjourned with- 
out having reached the desired agreement. It takes 
more than one such repulse, however, to discourage 
politicians. Another conference was presently ar- 
ranged, and, as if to make sure that sufhcient pres- 
sure would be exerted upon the recalcitrant member, 
a number of prominent citizens, not in the Legis- 
lature but anxious for Springfield's success, were 
craftily invited to attend. An earnest discussion 
ensued. Those who favored the compact employed 
every argument that they could frame in its behalf. 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 221 

Some of the speakers, deploring Lincoln's inconven- 
ient scruples, begged him to lay them aside, join his 
friends, and make sure of the capital for Sangamon 
County, but without avail. Finally, after midnight, 
when the candles were burning low and the talk had 
well-nigh run its course, he arose to close the debate. 
What Lincoln said has not been preserved entire, 
but an admirer, who described the speech as "one 
of the most eloquent and powerful " to which he had 
ever listened, has handed down these concluding 
words: "You may burn my body to ashes and scat- 
ter them to the winds of heaven ; you may drag my 
soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to 
be tormented forever; but you will never get me to 
support a measure which I believe to be wrong, 
although by doing so I may accomplish that which 
I believe to be right." ^^ 

How much provocation the speaker had for this 
burst of perfervid oratory cannot now be deter- 
mined, yet whatever one may say about his rhetoric, 
there can be no doubt concerning his good faith. 
That meeting adjourned, as its predecessor had done, 
without taking the questionable step so warmly ad- 
vocated by most of the persons present; and one of 
the participants, at least, must be credited with hav- 
ing made clear that even a "log-roller" may set con- 
scientious bounds to the scope of his operations. 

Nor was this the only occasion on which Lincoln 
vetoed the unseemly devices to which some of his too 
eager partisans would have resorted. They had ac- 
cepted willingly enough, while the contest for the 
capital lasted, such conditions as were imposed by 



222 HONEST ABE 

the general act upon whatever place might become 
the seat of government. But after the victory went 
to Sangamon, these conditions did not appear quite 
so attractive. One of them, in fact, gave the Spring- 
field people some uneasiness. This was a clause 
which required the successful community to raise 
fifty thousand dollars, by private subscriptions, in 
order that a corresponding amount, appropriated 
under the act for the erection of needful public 
buildings, might be refunded to the State. What 
looks like a small sum now, must have loomed large 
in those days on the financial horizon of a strug- 
gling little frontier town. And its task of collecting 
the required donations, difficult under normal con- 
ditions, became doubly so during the hard times 
which were ushered in this same year by the historic 
panic of 1837. 

The situation seemed to call for relief of some 
kind. So a way out suggested itself to an ambitious 
young politician who had recently taken up his resi- 
dence in Springfield. This was Stephen A. Douglas, 
the newly elected Register of the Land Office. His 
scheme, prefiguring many adroit political shifts to 
come, had the characteristic merit of being at once 
simple and efficacious. It proposed, in a word, repu- 
diation. By means of an innocent little legislative 
amendment, deftly applied, Springfield was to step 
out from under this burden and let the cost slip back 
to its original place, on the shoulders of the State. 
But Lincoln again barred the way. 

"We have the benefit," said he. " Let us stand to 
our obligation like men." -° 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 223 

And so they did. Yet money for the first two pay- 
ments — there were to be three in all — was scraped 
together with some difficulty; and worse still, when 
the third installment came due, no funds whatever 
seemed collectible. Many of the subscribers had be- 
come impoverished, while none of them were flush. 
So the required sum, $16,666,67, was borrowed from 
the State Bank of Illinois on a note that bore the 
signatures of one hundred and one citizens. They 
took eight years to discharge the debt. How hard 
it came for some of them to meet their share, what 
economies were practiced, what sacrifices made, 
can, in the nature of things, never be known. The 
episode itself, stripped of all these romantic de- 
tails, — a simple tale of plain good faith, — must 
suffice for history. And it does suffice. For now, 
after more than two thirds of a century has elapsed, 
that painfully liquidated note is still extant. Framed 
and displayed in a banking-house at Springfield, 
where all who enter may see, it serves as a memorial 
to the rectitude of the community during those try- 
ing times. 

They were trying times, indeed, and to none of 
these one hundred and one signers more so, perhaps, 
than to him who had written the name, "A, Lin- 
coln." When he came to the recently chosen capital, 
as we have seen, shortly after adjournment of the 
General Assembly, to seek his fortunes at the bar, 
this young politician's financial condition was, in a 
sense, worse than penniless. The burden of "the 
national debt" lay upon him, and the few dollars in 
his pocket did not suffice — the reader will recall 



224 HONEST ABE 

— to supply his most pressing wants. How those 
wants were met, first by a seat at Butler's table, then 
by a place in Speed's bed, may also be recalled. And 
possibly it is as well to add — for all these circum- 
stances are of peculiar significance now — even the 
horse which carried him, a few weeks later, on his 
first trip around the circuit was borrowed from a 
colleague, Robert L. Wilson, of the "Long Nine." 
That a man who had been one of the leading actors 
in an orgy of extravagant legislation should emerge 
from the session so impoverished as to be dependent 
momentarily upon the hospitality of one friend for 
food, of another for shelter, and of still another for 
the means of gaining a livelihood, is its own commen- 
tary on his probity. Nor does this appear less note- 
worthy, in the light of a commonly accepted belief 
that the "internal improvement" measures were 
tainted with personal corruption. The whirl of en- 
ticing opportunities during those rapid days is said 
to have swept more than one legislator off his feet. 
Yet the Sangamon chief stood steadfast. He could 
see nothing attractive in the illicit, or at least dubi- 
ous, gains which were garnered by perverting official 
duties to selfish ends. In fact, then and thereafter 

— during that sinister period, as well as throughout 
his entire four consecutive terms in the Illinois 
House — Lincoln's record, so far as such matters 
went, was spotless. Like certain other political 
leaders to whom private fortunes have been lacking, 
he followed the rule laid down in one of Daniel 
Webster's aphorisms: "The man who enters pub- 
lic life takes upon himself a vow of poverty, to the 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 225 

religious observance of which he is bound so long 
as he remains in it." 

There was, however, nothing ascetic, we hasten to 
add, about "the godlike" Daniel's life — public or 
private. Improvident and debt-ridden, he indulged 
himself, to the point of reckless extravagance, in a 
mode of living beside which the Illinoisan's simple 
habits formed a striking contrast. They were both 
poor, it is true, but from very different causes. What 
some of these were, in Lincoln's case, the stories 
recounting his hapless business ventures and his 
unprofitable methods at the bar have already dis- 
closed. For the rest, an engrossing interest in poli- 
tics with its resultant sacrifices, as the years went on, 
of time, attention, even money, hardly served to im- 
prove the situation. One is prepared, therefore, to 
learn that when funds ran low he too made shift to 
eke out his resources by applying the familiar math- 
ematical formula, — three from two we cannot take 
so I borrow. 

Lincoln's very entrance into public life had been 
made, it must be confessed, through the drab doors 
of debt. After his first election to the Legislature, 
while still at New Salem, he was confronted by a per- 
plexing question. How could a countryman, wholly 
without means, acquire presentable clothes, travel all 
the way down to the seat of government at Vandalia, 
and maintain himself there until pay-day in a man- 
ner befitting the dignity of a lawmaker? This partic- 
ular countryman was not long contriving the answer. 
Calling on Coleman Smoot, a prosperous farmer in 
the district, he asked : "Smoot, did you vote for me? " 



226 HONEST ABE 

The answer was a prompt affirmative. 

"Well," said Lincoln, "you must loan me money 
to buy suitable clothing, for I want to make a decent 
appearance in the Legislature." 

Here was a whimsical reversal of the course that 
funds too often take in passing between candidate 
and voter. But Smoot, who had a warm admiration 
for the new member, entered cordially into the 
humor of the affair. He handed out two hundred 
dollars — enough it would seem to meet all of Lin- 
coln's prospective expenses ; and these two hundred 
dollars — we have the lender's own statement for the 
fact — were some time thereafter repaid, "accord- 
ing to promise." -^ 

The same amount of money, taking the same un- 
accustomed direction, figured in another peculiar 
election episode. On the latter occasion, however, 
a contribution was made to further the office-seek- 
er's election, rather than to help him out afterwards. 
And this is how it happened. During a vigorously 
contested canvass, the Whigs raised a purse of two 
hundred dollars which Joshua F. Speed handed Lin- 
coln to defray his expenses. When the election was 
over, the victorious candidate brought back one 
hundred and ninety-nine dollars and twenty-five 
cents. Giving this to his friend, with a request that 
it be distributed again among the subscribers, he 
said : " I did not need the money. I made the canvass 
on my own horse. My entertainment, being at the 
houses of friends, cost me nothing ; and my only out- 
lay was seventy-five cents for a barrel of cider, which 
some farmhands insisted I should treat them to." ^^ 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 227 

Lincoln's failure to find a use for these funds was 
in keeping with the simple honesty which prompted 
their return. Yet throughout this very period he 
must have been harried, not only by his old business 
debts, but also by the several successors to the Smoot 
loan that his necessities, from time to time, brought 
into being. Nor were such accommodations always 
from friends. We catch a glimpse, early in 1839, of 
a maturing note at the bank that had to be renewed, 
and the interest charges on which had to be paid.^^ 
Indeed, many years were destined to elapse before 
Lincoln could wholly free himself from the meshes 
of these carking obligations. They held him mean- 
while fast-bound among the debtor class, and what 
he endured, intensifying a natural tenderness for 
all unfortunates, stirred his sympathies to their 
very depths in behalf of other men who might be 
similarly circumstanced. 

The situation, however, called for more than mere 
sympathy. Victims of exorbitant interest charges 
were to be met with, during the first third of the 
nineteenth century, on every hand, in Illinois. 
There, as elsewhere, capital when staked against the 
hazards of pioneer ventures exacted heavy tolls. 
Banks and "moneyed institutions," so-called, were 
restricted, it is true, by an act passed in 18 19, to re- 
turns not exceeding six per cent; but under that 
same law other investors expressly had leave to make 
contracts without any limitations upon the extent 
of their charges, and for the most part — needless 
to say — they took advantage of the privilege. Rates 
running all the way from one hundred and fifty to 



228 HONEST ABE 

three hundred per cent were not uncommon in the 
placing of loans, while the customary figures hov- 
ered about fifty per cent. The oppression and suffer- 
ing which these burdens entailed gave rise to clam- 
orous demands for relief. Yet the way out seemed 
far from plain. How borrowers could be protected 
against ruin due to extortion, without being plunged 
as hopelessly into disaster through ill-advised leg- 
islation which, by discouraging lenders, might cut 
off all supplies, was the form which the problem 
took. 

It appears to have been presented from many 
angles during the canvass of 1832 ; and Lincoln, as a 
raw candidate for the Legislature, had taken a hand, 
even then, in the solution. What he proposed was 
thus set forth among the postulates of that first for- 
mal political document, his "Address to the People 
of Sangamon County ": — 

"It seems as though we are never to have an end 
to this baneful and corroding system, acting almost 
as prejudicially to the general interests of the com- 
munity as a direct tax of several thousand dollars 
annually laid on each county for the benefit of a few 
individuals only, unless there be a law made fixing 
the limits of usury. A law for this purpose, I am of 
opinion, may be made without materially injuring 
any class of people. In cases of extreme necessity, 
there could always be means found to cheat the law; 
while in all other cases it would have its intended 
effect. I would favor the passage of a law on this 
subject which might not be very easily evaded. Let 
it be such that the labor and difficulty of evading 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 229 

it could only be justified in cases of greatest ne- 
cessity." ^^ 

A singular programme, truly, yet what could one 
expect, in those times of loose financiering, from an 
embryo prairie politician just pipping his shell? 
Older heads — in fact, seasoned lawmakers and 
economists without number, from the very beginning 
of commercial history down to the present day — 
hardly make a better showing when it comes to 
devising how this "tooth of usury," as an eminent 
Lord Chancellor once said, may "be grinded that 
it bite not too much." Lincoln's naive plea that 
means could be found, when necessary, "to cheat 
the law, while in all other cases it would have its 
intended effect," reveals a certain uneasy sense of 
the fatal weakness running through all such legisla- 
tion. And one is at a loss what to marvel over most, 
— the candor with which he admits this defect, or 
the childlike disregard of public ethics involved in 
his awkward attempt to meet the difficulty by sug- 
gesting occasional violations of the statute. 

That subterfuge reminds us of a story, as Abe him- 
self used to say, — one of his own, in fact. He told 
it, not long afterwards, on the stump, at the expense 
of an opponent who gave equivocal answers to some 
searching questions. This man, Lincoln said, was 
like a hunter he had once known. Boasting of his 
marksmanship on a certain occasion, and telling how 
he brought down an animal during the season when 
a calf might easily be mistaken for a deer, the fellow 
concluded his recital with the fine flourish : " I shot at 
it so as to hit it if it was a deer, and miss it if a calf." 



230 HONEST ABE 

What might pass for a hit-or-miss bill, limiting 
the rate of interest to not more than twelve per cent, 
became a law during the following winter. But as 
Lincoln had failed of election to the Legislature 
which enacted this statute, none of its shortcomings 
can fairly be laid, except in a remote sense, at his 
door. Such was not the case, however, with several 
important financial measures adopted by the suc- 
ceeding sessions that he did attend. We have seen 
how he plunged into the excesses which grew out of 
the ' ' internal improvement ' ' craze, and though many 
fellow-members of both parties are also charge- 
able with what took place, few if any of them were 
more active than he in shaping the course of this 
hapless legislation. It was under his leadership that 
the "Long Nine" exerted their very considerable 
influence, as has been told, to put the so-called "sys- 
tem" through. And a merry dance they had, with- 
out too much thought concerning who should pay 
the fiddler. Soberer men, trying here or there in 
small numbers to block the way, were swept aside. 
An infatuated Assembly, hardly stopping to count 
the cost, voted appropriations for public works 
aggregating over ten millions of dollars ; -^ and inter- 
est-bearing securities were authorized to an amount 
not exceeding eleven millions. Of this sum, eight 
millions were to be borrowed for the works, two mil- 
lions for the State Bank of Illinois, and one million 
for the Bank of Illinois at Shawneetown. These two 
institutions became the fiscal agents of the State, 
with a proviso that their net earnings should be ap- 
plied to the payment of interest, as it accrued, on 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 231 

"improvement" bonds. Nothing could have been 
simpler and — less dependable. The debt so created 
— at least such part of it as found a market — was 
out of all proportion to the young State's proper 
credit or resources. Consequently, when financial 
ruin swept over the continent in the spring of 1837, 
not many Commonwealths were, relatively speak- 
ing, more deeply involved than Illinois. 

To meet what looked like an impending crisis, 
Governor Duncan called a special session of the 
General Assembly in the following July, and urged 
either modification or repeal of the "internal im- 
provement" acts. But his efforts were fruitless. 
The Legislature refused to destroy or mar its handi- 
work. Most of those jocund castle-builders could 
not bring themselves to believe that the ambitious 
structure which they had begun to rear with so much 
pride was, after all, a mere house of cards, shaking 
in the first gust of bad weather and ready to fall 
about their ears. Prophecies of such a disaster met, 
as might have been expected, with stubborn opti- 
mism, especially from the ranks of the Whig minor- 
ity. They stood pledged as a political unit to the 
policy of munificent public works; and enough 
Democrats felt similarly committed to join them in 
bringing about a rejection of the Governor's plea. 

More than that, during the following sessions, un- 
der Lincoln's guidance — for he had meanwhile be- 
come the recognized leader of his party in the 
House — these "improvement" men, still bat-eyed, 
reached the climax of their folly, and actually en- 
larged the scope of the enterprise by nearly one mil- 



232 HONEST ABE 

Hon dollars. The rest is soon told. Hardly had this 
last reckless step been taken when a wave of that 
utter demoralization which marked the panic struck 
Illinois with crushing force. Improvement bonds 
could no longer be sold except at ruinous discounts. 
Some of the securities had been entrusted to bankers 
who failed, while other parcels were moved under 
circumstances which smelt strongly of fraud. 

Collections, moreover, seemed impossible. The 
treasury of the State was nearly empty. Its credit, 
if not quite gone, was badly shaken, and so were all 
its fond illusions. The dazzling game had, in fact, 
come to an end. Without funds or prospects for 
raising any, the famous "system" collapsed. Obvi- 
ously what the situation now required left but slen- 
der choice of action. The mischief already done had 
to be undone, as fully as circumstances would allow, 
and the "internal improvement" laws must be re- 
pealed. Yet the Whigs did not take kindly to this 
programme. They gave ground sullenly, Lincoln 
voting against repeal with the rest of his party 
through several sessions, until at last the logic 
of events forced them to help their Democratic col- 
leagues put the whole deplorable business "down 
in a lump," as he himself expressed it, "without 
benefit of clergy." ^^ 

Unfortunately there was one detail that could not 
be put down so summarily. The public debt, which 
had been piled up with such assurance, remained 
to perplex its crestfallen creators. They discovered, 
too late, that bonds can be more easily voted than 
annulled ; and while casting about for a way out of 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 233 

their dilemma, they found themselves facing an in- 
terest day with no adequate balance in sight to pay 
the bill. For a brief period Illinois honor hung in 
the balance. Some of these precious legislators 
wished to repudiate the entire indebtedness outright 
— principal as well as interest; others, not quite so 
shameless, proposed that the Government, disre- 
garding face values, should deal with the bonds on 
the basis of what it had received for them when they 
were sold; while still others favored discrimination 
against such of the securities only as had been dis- 
posed of illegally or acquired by questionable means. 
With the last of these Lincoln agreed so far as 
concerned bonds held by those who had themselves 
been parties to fraudulent transfers. Otherwise, none 
of the suggested expedients won his approval. He 
evinced no sympathy for repudiation, in whatever 
form it presented itself, nor was his unmercenary 
mind greatly exercised over the money that had 
been misspent. What did concern him mightily at 
this juncture, though, was the unmistakable trend 
toward dishonesty and bad faith into which such 
ideas were luring the State. To head off that tend- 
ency, he set himself the task of raising somehow at 
once sufficient funds for the accruing interest. It 
seemed, in a sense, peculiarly his affair. As a mem- 
ber of the Committee on Finance for three succes- 
sive terms, and as the acknowledged leader of those 
who had been most active in passing this wild-cat 
legislation, Lincoln's share of the responsibility was 
no small one. He frankly admitted it. Yet here, 
again, the man's sterling character redeemed the 



234 HONEST ABE 

faults of his business training. However blindly he 
may have groped with the others among the mazes 
of these financial and economic ventures, when the 
time came at last to settle for their mistakes, he saw, 
with crystal clearness, that anything short of pay- 
ment in full would spell dishonor. The very language 
of the "improvement" act itself fixed this standard, 
unless indeed we are to regard as a mere stock-job- 
ber's flourish the words, "for which payments and 
redemption, well and truly to be made and eff^ected, 
the faith of the State of Illinois is hereby irrevocably 
pledged." ^' 

But how were the needed funds to be obtained? 
A short-time loan secured by hypothecated bonds 
had been proposed, and the idea met with favor. 
But Lincoln objected. It would, he claimed, carry 
them along merely a few months, and leave the prob- 
lem still unsolved. His solution, "after turning the 
matter over in every way," was to issue "interest 
bonds" which should be met eventually by taxes 
derived from public lands. ^^ Both these plans were 
far from ideal. They are suggestive of the shifts 
resorted to by that impecunious old gentleman who 
thanked God because he had succeeded, at last, in 
borrowing enough money to pay his debts. 

The alternative presented to Illinois, however, of 
meeting its obligations by laying a heavy direct 
tax upon the impoverished people of the State was, 
as Lincoln truly said, out of the question. Con- 
sequently we find him, when his own measure failed 
of adoption, helping to put through the short- 
time loan. In fact, by that means the interest 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 235 

charges payable during 1841 were met, as they be- 
came due ; and one ugly crisis was, for the time being, 
averted. Still, the inevitable crash had merely been 
postponed, not prevented. Illinois defaulted on its 
bonds during the following year. By that time, 
however, Lincoln, having attended his last session 
as a Representative, was spared the humiliation of 
officially facing this disgrace. 

Other ordeals growing out of the general disaster 
were less easy to avoid. A notable instance had run 
through several of Lincoln's preceding terms, when 
the State Bank of Illinois found itself in deep water. 
Compelled, like so many similar institutions, to sus- 
pend specie payment through the panic days of 
1837, that enterprise seemed doomed to certain de- 
struction, because under the law such a suspension 
for sixty days together was to be followed by for- 
feiture of its charter and liquidation of its affairs. 
But those affairs, the reader will remember, were 
concerned, to an intimate degree, with the recently 
adopted scheme for "internal improvements." In 
fact, the two interests had become so closely inter- 
locked that whatever menaced the stability of the 
bank might well have been deemed a source of dan- 
ger to the State. 

Naturally, no time was lost in providing the rem- 
edy; and an Assembly, convened during the summer 
of 1837, extended the period during which specie 
could legally be withheld "until the end of the 
next general or special session." The fateful day 
came, but not the resumption of specie payment. 
So the Legislature that met in December, 1839, after 



236 HONEST ABE 

listening to the several reports made by a joint 
select investigating committee of which Lincoln 
was a member, revived the forfeited charter and 
granted still further grace to "the close of the next 
session." Conditions, however, so far as available 
specie went, became worse rather than better. Ac- 
cordingly, when the following Assembly — a special 
one — was called in November, 1840, at Spring- 
field, to provide funds for defraying interest on the 
bonded debt, that brief sitting alone seemingly in- 
tervened between the bank and ruin. 

This prospect mightily gratified the Democrats. 
They had grown hostile toward the "rag-barons," 
as these delinquent capitalists were then frequently 
called ; while the Whigs, on the contrary, saw in their 
plight nothing short of a public calamity. So Lin- 
coln and his followers determined to keep the House, 
which met at that time in the Methodist Church, 
from finally adjourning until the approaching regu- 
lar Assembly, within a few days, might enable them 
to give the bank a new lease of life. An earnestly 
contested parliamentary struggle ensued. The Whig 
minority cannot be said to have made much headway 
save toward the close of the session, after attendance 
in the House had thinned out, and the Democrats 
were ready to vote adjournment without day. Then 
the friends of the bank, under Lincoln's leadership, 
set about warding ofT that stroke by absenting them- 
selves in sufficient numbers to break the quorum. 
This procedure required alert team-play. While Lin- 
coln and his colleague Joseph Gillespie remained to 
demand the ayes and noes, their associates left in a 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 237 

body. Directly afterwards, when the opponents of 
the bank tried to vote a final adjournment, they 
were halted, as had been planned, by the point of 
order, "No quorum." A call of the House having 
been ordered, the sergeant-at-arms rounded up a 
number of the absentees and brought them in. 
Amidst much excitement Lincoln hurried to the 
church door. It was locked. Turning as quickly to 
a window, with the faithful Gillespie and Asahel 
Gridley, of McLean County, at his heels, he jumped 
out, but not before the House had succeeded in ad- 
journing. 

There seemed still to be a chance for the State 
Bank, however. That ill-starred enterprise had not 
quite reached the closing stage. Within a few weeks 
its flickering life was again prolonged by legislative 
means, and the end was again postponed, but not, 
we should add, for long. Final dissolution presently 
set in. And after clinging to existence against des- 
perate odds, through some very trying months, the 
bank collapsed, at last, beyond all hope of recovery. 
As for Lincoln, the lengths to which he had gone in 
his futile efforts to save it left him penitent. He 
would gladly have relegated that discreditable exit 
through the church window to the limbo of things 
best forgotten. But the public memory is tenacious 
of such picturesque misdeeds, and long after what 
really mattered in the State Bank's tragic story had 
passed from men's minds, the ghost of this little 
escapade returned at times to trouble its inventor. ^^ 

There were not many disquieting recollections of 
that sort to vex Lincoln's peace of mind ; and hap- 



'238 HONEST ABE 

pily so, for he became sensitive in later days con- 
cerning them. When all is said, however, the few 
lapses just disclosed — lapses which his admirers 
might well have wished otherwise — should perhaps 
be charged to a callow excess of legislative ardor 
rather than to a deficiency in correct political prin- 
ciples. For Lincoln's conduct as a politician — that 
is to say his conduct regarded from the personal 
rather than the parliamentary point of view — was 
above reproach. Indeed, he bore himself where his 
own interests were concerned with an attention to the 
niceties of honor that evoked admiring comments. 
How far these encomiums went may be inferred 
from a typical one by Judge Samuel C. Parks, who 
wrote: " I have often said that for a man who was for 
the quarter of a century both a lawyer and a politi- 
cian, he was the most honest man I ever knew." ^° 

That same rectitude, in fact, which debarred him 
from taking a shabby case at law when cases were 
not too plentiful, kept his politics unsoiled. The 
man's ambition was keen, keener by far than even 
his need of fees; yet the closest scrutiny reveals no 
personal let-down anywhere in his code while follow- 
ing either pursuit. Lincoln failed to conceive, de- 
spite certain commonly accepted tenets to the con- 
trary, among public men the world over, why there 
should be one kind of conscience for the private cit- 
izen, and another, of a wholly different variety, for 
the politician. 

How punctilious a campaigner this man could be 
is illustrated by a little incident that took place on 
one occasion when he was running for the Legisla- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 239 

ture. A candidate for another place — an office- 
seeker of whom he did not approve — accompanied 
Lincoln to the polls on election day, and ostenta- 
tiously voted for him with the hope, no doubt, of se- 
curing a similar compliment in return. But his cast 
went far wide of its mark. For Lincoln, ignoring the 
bait, greatly to the admiration of those who saw the 
occurrence, voted against him. Log-rolling to in- 
crease his own vote at election time and log-rolling 
to further the passage of a bill were acts so dissimilar 
in the eyes of the young member from Sangamon 
that he would not stoop to the one, while he made 
almost a fine art of the other. 

Lincoln looked with disfavor, even during those 
ill-regulated days, upon the methods employed by 
unscrupulous politicians to attain their ends. He 
denounced the whole class as " a set of men who have 
interests aside from the interests of the people, and 
who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, 
at least one long step removed from honest men." 
The "holier-than-thou" tone of this criticism must 
have flashed at the moment through his mind, for he 
hastened to add: "I say this with the greater free- 
dom because, being a politician myself, none can 
regard it as personal." ^^ 

Somewhat of that same disapproval was more 
pithily expressed in another country, at a later date, 
by no less a personage than Benjamin Disraeli when, 
after sounding the depths and scaling the heights of 
English public life through a period of strenuous 
years, he remarked to a colleague: "Look at it as 
you will, ours is a beastly profession." 



240 HONEST ABE 

Benjamin and Abraham had not many traits in 
common: they were the products of vastly different 
systems; yet a striking resemblance runs through 
their fine sense of personal honor, their prolonged 
struggles with debt, their disregard for money, and 
their contempt of those engaged in politics to serve 
corrupt private ends. Venality among office-hold- 
ers early aroused Lincoln's indignation. He could 
sympathize with nearly any human weakness but 
dishonesty, and the dishonesty of trusted public 
servants seemed to him doubly reprehensible. Con- 
sequently, in dealing with such thieves, this gentle 
man, usually so tender of other men's sensibilities, 
smote and spared not. In fact, so severe could be his 
blows that the scholarly English leader — expert at 
sarcasm though he was — is credited with no more 
scathing utterance than the Illinoisan pronounced 
against certain rogues who had robbed the American 
Government. Their castigation furnished a stirring 
incident to the famous debate on " Subtreasuries " 
that took place at Springfield, during December, 
1839. Seven participants — four Democrats and 
three Whigs — had spoken, when Lincoln closed the 
series in what some considered the best effort of 
all. Addressing himself to the argument made by a 
predecessor in the opposing camp, he said : — 

"Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between 
the Van Buren Party and the Whigs is that although 
the former sometimes err in practice, they are always 
correct in principle, whereas the latter are wrong 
in principle; and, better to impress this proposition, 
he uses a figurative expression in these words, ' The 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 241 

Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but they are 
sound in the head and the heart.' The first branch 
of the figure, — that is, that the Democrats are vul- 
nerable in the heel, — I admit is not merely figura- 
tively, but literally true. Who that looks but for a 
moment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their 
Harringtons, and their hundreds of others, scamper- 
ing away with the public money to Texas, to Europe, 
and to every spot of the earth where a villain may 
hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that 
they are most distressingly affected in their heels 
with a species of 'running itch.' It seems that this 
malady of their heels operates on these sound-headed 
and honest-hearted creatures very much like the 
cork leg in the comic song did on its owner; which, 
when he had once got started on it, the more he tried 
to stop it, the more it would run away. At the haz- 
ard of wearing this point threadbare, I will relate an 
anecdote which seems too strikingly in point to be 
omitted. A witty Irish soldier, who was always 
boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, 
but who invariably retreated without orders at the 
first charge of an engagement, being asked by his 
captain why he did so, replied, — 'Captain, I have 
as brave a heart as Julius Caesar ever had; but, 
somehow or other, whenever danger approaches, my 
cowardly legs will run away with it.' 

' ' So with Mr. Lamborn's party. They take the pub- 
lic money into their hand for the most laudable pur- 
pose that wise heads and honest hearts can dictate ; 
but before they can possibly get it out again, their ras- 
cally 'vulnerable heels' will run away with them." ^^ 



242 HONEST ABE 

These thieving officials were of a type comm m — 
far too common — among the spoilsmen bilieted 
upon their country by the party in power during 
those easy-going days. Yet, numerous as the graft- 
ers must have been, Lincoln did not allow mere 
weight of numbers to unbalance his sense of their 
guilt. Nor was he less keenly alive to other forms of 
dishonesty that manifested themselves, from time 
to time, among certain self-seeking politicians, who, 
trimming their sails deftly at critical moments be- 
tween conflicting breezes, somehow turned up, with 
charters revised to date, in any snug-harbor which, 
by an odd coincidence, happened to contain the 
lucrative offices. 

How hard he could be upon such gentry may be 
inferred from the oft-related retort to George For- 
quer. It was uttered early in Lincoln's career, before 
he had attained any considerable public standing, 
against a man, moreover, who as a lawyer, Rep- 
resentative, State Senator, Attorney-General, and 
Secretary of State, appears to have ranked for years 
among the ablest leaders in Illinois. Forquer, having 
recently swung over from the Whigs to the Demo- 
crats, had just been rewarded with an appointment 
to the Registry of the Land Office at Springfield. 
He cut a wide swathe, and his newly erected man- 
sion, the finest in the city, attracted attention, not 
alone for its beauty, but also because, conspicuously 
displayed on the structure, rose the only lightning- 
rod to be seen throughout the community. It was at 
about this time that the two men crossed swords. 
Lincoln, making the canvass of 1836 for his reelec- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 243 

tion ; p the Legislature, spoke at a Springfield meeting 
with|SUch effect as to stir the listening Forquer, an 
acknowledged master of invective, into a reply. The 
Register felt obliged to vindicate his recently ac- 
quired Democratic principles, but what moved him 
most was a conviction, as he explained it, that "this 
young man would have to be taken down." With a 
lofty assumption of superiority, the orator went on 
to express regret over the unpleasant task which a 
sense of duty had imposed upon him ; yet the senti- 
ment was apparently not allowed to dull the keen 
edge of his sarcasm. For the onslaught is said to 
have been uncommonly severe. 

At its conclusion Lincoln, who had stood near, 
laboring under manifest excitement while atten- 
tively regarding his assailant, remounted the plat- 
form and made a rejoinder that has become historic. 
The final words lingered for many years in the mem- 
ories of those who heard them. One listener, a de- 
voted friend, has thus recalled what he believes t6 
be substantially Lincoln's language: "Mr. Forquer 
commenced his speech by announcing that the 
young man would have to be taken down. It is for 
you, fellow citizens, not for me to say whether I am 
up or down. The gentleman has seen fit to allude to 
my being a young man; but he forgets that I am 
older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of 
politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and 
distinction; but I would rather die now than, like 
the gentleman, live to see the day that I would 
change my politics for an office worth three thou- 
sand dollars a year, and then feel compelled to erect 



244 HONEST ABE 

a lightning-rod to protect a guilty conscience from 
an offended God." ^^ 

The effect was electric. Forquer's rod had not 
averted the lightning. He had, in fact, received a 
grievous stroke. His antagonist was borne from 
the court-house on the crest of an enthusiastic 
crowd ; and during the brief remainder of the turn- 
coat's life, Lincoln's reproach stuck in the man's 
fame like a burdock on a woolly goat. 

Forquer was not the only patriot of his peculiar 
stripe to arouse Lincoln's slow-rising ire. It reached 
the boiling point against another politician who 
apparently placed a literal construction on that 
rather loose epigram whereby party has been defined 
as "the madness of many for the gain of a few." In 
this particular instance, "the gain" fell short of 
what at least one among the favored "few" consid- 
ered his just share. The malcontent, Charles H. 
Constable by name, lawyer by profession, and Whig 
by election, was intensely dissatisfied with his polit- 
ical associates. They had twice elected him to the 
State Senate; but considering his talents, which are 
admitted to have been of no mean order, he felt him- 
self entitled to more substantial recognition. So insist- 
ent became this feeling that habits of disloyalty grew 
with it; and he lost no opportunity of denouncing 
the policy pursued by the party toward its younger 
supporters. These fault-findings, moreover, waxed 
especially censorious if Whig leaders happened to be 
present, as was the case one day on circuit when Con- 
stable, with others, visited Judge Davis and Lincoln 
in a room at Paris that the two occupied together. 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 245 

On this occasion the man with a grievance lost no 
time In taking the floor. He characterized the Whigs 
as "old-fogyish," and charged them with Indiffer- 
ence to rising men ; while the Democrats were lauded 
for their progressive methods in these respects. 
What the grumbler said was hardly borne out by the 
facts ; and perhaps none of those present realized this 
more keenly than Lincoln, whose own experience 
proved quite the contrary. He listened in silence, 
however, for he was standing at the time before a 
mirror, with his coat off, shaving. But when the 
speaker went on to instance himself as a victim of 
political ingratitude and neglect, Lincoln turned 
upon him sharply and said: "Mr. Constable, I un- 
derstand you perfectly, and have noticed for some 
time back that you have been slowly and cautiously 
picking your way over to the Democratic Party." 

An exciting scene ensued. Both men became so 
Incensed that only the combined efforts of all the 
others who were present sufficed to prevent a fight, 
though Lincoln, as one of the spectators expressed 
it, seemed for a time to be "terribly willing." The 
quarrel was patched up, however, but not Con- 
stable's resentment against the Whig Party; for 
shortly afterward, he revealed how just had been 
Lincoln's rebuke by deserting to the Democracy.^* 

These shifty place-hunters were doubly blamable 
in "Honest Abe's" eyes. He despised politicians 
who forsook their colors to secure promotions under 
the standards of the enemy, not only because such 
acts were dishonorable In themselves, but also, it 
must be confessed, because they involved treason to 



246 HONEST ABE 

political associates. For Lincoln was a partisan. His 
temperament, no less than his fidelity to principle, 
made him a champion eager and ever ready to bat- 
tle for cherished convictions. But the feudal days 
of single combat had passed. He did not believe 
in battling alone. Like so many other public men 
of recent modern times, he did believe in the organ- 
ized expression of economic opinion which is called 
a party. To him, as to them, it appeared obvious 
— almost elemental — that voters who accept the 
same cardinal doctrines should associate them- 
selves together for united action, and that when 
several such associations with conflicting views, 
tempered, however, by the sober restraints of intel- 
hgent patriotism, confront one another in the field 
of politics, there is an approach at least to well- 
balanced government. The party in power deems 
itself answerable to the entire nation for a success- 
ful administration, the party or parties out of power 
feel an equal responsibility for watchful criticism; 
while the system itself, though far from ideal, pro- 
vides a practical solution to some perplexing prob- 
lems, and a safeguard of constitutional rights. As 
for the rest, Lincoln's common sense told him that 
within such organizations alone was efficient political 
action possible. Explaining this idea on one notable 
occasion, and speaking from the politician's not too 
lofty point of view, he said: "A free people, in times 
of peace and quiet, — when pressed by no common 
danger, — naturally divide into parties. At such 
times the man who is of neither party is not, cannot 
be, of any consequence." ^^ 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 247 

The speaker did, at an early day, become of "con- 
sequence." It was as a party man that he received 
the vote of the Whig minority for Speaker of the 
IlUnois House in 1838, and again in 1840.^^ During 
those stormy sessions, the parliamentary leadership 
which went with this distinction could have been 
held by a zealous partisan only. Lincoln was that, 
but of course, be it said, he was abundantly more 
than that. For he commended himself also to his 
colleagues by signal qualities of a different character. 
In the first place, his remarkable talent for mastery 
had come into play betimes. To quote Governor 
Reynolds: "As soon as he got his bearings, got ac- 
quainted, and found how things were drifting, he 
took the Legislature good-naturedly by the nose, 
and led them, just like he did his township on the 
Sangamon." ^^ 

Then, too, under this easy assumption of control 
were developing the traits that draw men to a polit- 
ical chieftain. A ready grasp of public questions, an 
equally ready skill in presenting them to the people 
or in discussing them with an opponent, the never- 
failing humor which could raise a laugh when a laugh 
was needed without too often leaving a sting behind, 
an almost infallible intuition for the trend of the pop- 
ular will, certain charms of personality which en- 
deared him to friends and won over enemies, a nat- 
ural aptitude for contriving measures of attack and 
defense, an uncommon degree of courage, — moral 
as well as physical, — and an even rarer fidelity to a 
high standard of honor, — all these doubtless had 
their influence upon the vote. But that the choice 



248 HONEST ABE 

centered in him, apparently without a dissenting 
voice from among his fellow Whigs, was also 
highly significant. For such a compliment furnishes 
the measure of a leader's devotion to his party. It 
was as a partisan, moreover, that Lincoln figured 
prominently in Illinois affairs during the succeeding 
twenty years, amidst a clash of men and principles 
theretofore unparalleled for political rancor. The 
issues presented by the problems of those stirring 
times had to be fought out vigorously on party 
lines; and the Sangamon chief, plunging into the 
thick of the fray, appears to have relished the zest 
of combat day by day, no less than the occasional 
victory. 

A man usually does best what he likes best to do. 
Lincoln loved politics. It was the one pursuit out- 
side of his profession that he thoroughly enjoyed 
and in which he felt thoroughly at home. Almost 
any time during those twenty years, with possibly 
one interval, people might have said of him, as was 
said of another public man, "he eats, he drinks, he 
sleeps politics." But at no time could Lincoln have 
truthfully forestalled Bismarck's lament, "Politics 
has eaten up every other hobby I had"; for in his 
case there were no other hobbies. From early man- 
hood to the end of his career, the art of government 
with its kindred activities was Lincoln's sole avo- 
cation. It is hardly surprising, therefore, all in all, to 
observe what consummate skill he brought to the 
service of the party. Indeed, a mere glance over this 
period in his career reveals how proficient he must 
have been. For we see him installing a system of 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 249 

nomination by convention among the Whigs, de- 
spite prejudice and opposition; making the keynote 
speeches, as they were called, in several warmly con- 
tested campaigns; drawing up the official election 
circulars and appeals to the people; stumping the 
field in his own behalf or in that of other local can- 
didates; canvassing the State on the electoral tick- 
ets of successive Presidential nominees; adroitly tak- 
ing advantage of dissensions in the opposing camp, 
while striving with rare tact to compose the differ- 
ences in his own ; planning, advising, controlling, un- 
til he became the ablest political manager, and at 
last, — to anticipate somewhat, — the recognized 
authority in his section on matters affecting the 
welfare of the organization. 

Lincoln was what is commonly termed a "practi- 
cal" politician. He knew the ins and outs of vote- 
getting as only a seasoned campaigner can know 
them. In fact, nothing of political significance 
seemed to escape his notice. He could say, for the 
most part, where the big men of the State would 
be found on any public question; nor was he less 
accurately informed as to what might be expected 
from local magnates of lesser degree. While if one of 
them did depart from his wonted course, in principle 
or tactics, Lincoln's intuitions might be trusted to 
prefigure, with some nicety, the effect of that depar- 
ture upon the man's popularity. For his grasp of 
political probabilities amounted almost to genius. 
How this or that district would go under given cir- 
cumstances was repeatedly forecast by him on the 
•ave of an election with unerring precision ; and when 



250 HONEST ABE 

the returns came in, he manifested equal skill among 
the figures. Every column had some story to tell 
him. Every gain or loss was promptly noted, often, 
indeed, by the aid of his well-stored memory alone; 
and at times, before the tables were completed, he 
would place a prophetic finger on the changes which 
presaged defeat or victory. 

That such a man stood high in the party councils 
goes without saying. As a member of the County 
Committee or the State Central Committee, his 
views held full sway; and when he happened to be 
relieved of official responsibility in the management 
of a campaign, those who were in charge sent for 
him, at important junctures, to help them out. 
Speaking of Lincoln's services at these conferences, 
Horace White, who once acted as secretary at State 
headquarters during a spirited canvass, said: "The 
Committee paid the utmost deference to his opin- 
ions. In fact, he was nearer to the people than they 
were. Traveling the circuit, he was constantly 
brought in contact with the most capable and dis- 
cerning men in the rural community. He had a more 
accurate knowledge of public opinion in central 
Illinois than any other man who visited the commit- 
tee rooms, and he knew better than anybody else 
what kind of arguments would be influential with 
the voters, and what kind of men could best pre- 
sent them." ^^ 

Moreover, when it became necessary to meet or 
head off some critical move on the part of their 
opponents, Lincoln brought to the fore, just as he 
did in the courts, that crowning gift of worldly 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 251 

shrewdness which not infrequently goes with sim- 
plicity of nature and downright honesty. He did not 
mislead himself any more than he did his associates, 
for he saw things as they actually were. He could 
put himself in the other man's place, and that is why 
he could make so close a calculation as to what the 
other man, under given circumstances, would pre- 
sumably do. "The other man," during one cam- 
paign, at least, appears to have been wanting in such 
foresight. And when on that occasion the projects 
of the Democrats miscarried, because they had 
failed to anticipate how Lincoln's side might act, 
the occurrence called forth one of his little Menard 
County stories. 

"This situation reminds me," said he, "of three 
or four fellows out near Athens, who went coon 
hunting one day. After being out some time the 
dogs treed a coon, which was soon discovered in the 
extreme top of a very tall oak tree. They had only 
one gun, a rifle; and after some discussion as to who 
was the best shot, one was decided on. He took the 
rifle and got into a good position. With the coon in 
plain view, lying close on a projecting limb, and at 
times moving slowly along, the man fired. But the 
coon was still on the limb, and a small bunch of 
leaves from just in front of the coon fluttered down. 
The surprise and indignation of the other fellows 
was boundless. All sorts of epithets were heaped on 
'the best shot,' and an explanation was demanded 
for his failure to bring down the coon, 'Well,' he 
said, 'you see, boys, by gum, I sighted just a leetle 
ahead, and 'lowed for the durned thing crawling.' " ^^ 



252 HONEST ABE 

When Lincoln, in the course of a political contest, 
allowed for something to happen, it usually did not 
fall very far short of taking place. A fatalist as to 
the great impelling current whereby a nation is car- 
ried toward its destiny, he believed that social and 
civic causes, however they may be impeded or di- 
verted for a time in their operations, must at last 
inevitably lead to corresponding effects. His fatal- 
ism, however, was of the robust type. It recognized 
how important a part men play in creating these 
forces, as well as in bringing about the results. Mir- 
acles formed no part of his political creed, and he 
waited for none to do his work. So we find him re- 
peatedly in the thick of the conflict, straining every 
nerve to gain a party victory. Such of his election- 
time letters as have been preserved furnish illumin- 
ating evidence of how industrious he could be. Ap- 
pealing to this man, arguing with that, advising one 
inquiring supporter in the rural districts, praising 
another, warning a colleague of some aggressive step 
contemplated by their opponents here, heartening 
a hard-pressed brother there, figuring, explaining, 
forecasting, Lincoln pulled apparently every straight 
wire which a vigorous use of the mails brought within 
his reach. 

He appreciated the appeal direct at its full value. 
And to this, Gibson W. Harris, one of the young men 
who sometimes assisted him, thus bore witness in 
later years: "The duty fell to me of writing letters, 
at his dictation, to influential men in the different 
counties, down to even obscure precincts. Finding 
the task not only burdensome, but slow, I suggested 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 253 

the use of a printed circular letter, but the proposal 
was vetoed offhand. A printed letter, he said, would 
not have nearly the same effect. A written one had 
the stamp of personality, was more flattering to the 
recipient, and would tell altogether more in assuring 
his good will, if not his support. So for several days 
the clerk was kept busy in writing more letters. 
Young and inexperienced as I was, I could not help 
noticing how shrewdly they were put together, and 
no two exactly alike. He approached each corre- 
spondent in a different way, and I soon reached the 
conclusion that the necessity he felt for doing this 
was his weightiest reason, after all, for discarding 
type." ^0 

Lincoln did not lose sight, however, of the wider 
opportunities for influencing voters presented by the 
printing-press. A tireless student of newspapers 
himself, reading them in fact, during this period, 
almost to the exclusion of all other general publica- 
tions, Lincoln became so familiar with the journals 
issued throughout the State that their several party 
afflliations were, whenever he had occasion to recall 
them, at his tongue's end. Many an article from his 
pen, purporting to be an expression of editorial opin- 
ion, appeared from time to time in various Illinois 
sheets. Whether the respective editors, when they 
adopted these contributions as their own, wholly 
eliminated the element of deception that enters into 
such transactions, is perhaps a moot question. One 
editor, at least, by a simple course avoided any 
misunderstanding on the subject. This was Jacob 
Harding who published a country newspaper in the 



254 HONEST ABE 

southern part of the State. To him Lincoln once 
wrote: ^^ Friend Harding: I have been reading your 
paper for three or four years, and have paid you 
nothing for it." Enclosing ten dollars the writer 
adds: " Put it into your pocket, say nothing further 
about it." 

The journalist did as he was bid. But soon there- 
after, when the generous subscriber sent him a polit- 
ical article with the request for its publication in the 
editorial columns of his "valued paper," Harding 
promptly decHned, "because," he explained, "I 
long ago made it a rule to publish nothing as edito- 
rial matter not written by myself." 

The joke was on Lincoln. Laughing heartily over 
the letter, he read it aloud to his law-partner, and 
said : ' ' That editor has a rather lofty but proper con- 
ception of true journalism." '^^ 

This experience was exceptional, however. For 
in, the main, Lincoln's newspaper contributions, like 
his personal missives, reached their intended goals, 
as indeed did most of his projects over the still wider 
ranges of party management. A practical politician, 
he employed practical methods. That much-decried 
scheme of co5rdinated effort, which for lack of a 
better term is commonly called "the machine," 
owed its development among the Whigs in Illinois 
more perhaps to him than to any other leader. As 
early as 1840, upon the eve of the Harrison cam- 
paign, he put forth a plan for thoroughly organiz- 
ing the party within the State. Four other men, it is 
true, were associated with him on the Central Com- 
mittee that had this matter in hand, but the enter- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 255 

prise was largely his work. He wrote the circular 
letter which explained the system they had adopted, 
and which announced explicitly what would be 
required thereafter of each party worker. From 
the several county committees that were arbitrarily 
appointed by the terms of the circular, down 
through district committees and sub-committees, 
— even to the individual voters, — every Whig was 
assigned to his part in the undertaking.'*^ A more 
complete programme for the control of political 
operations is not easily conceived. Nor do we often 
meet with a document of this class so frankly ex- 
pressed in the imperative mood. Its language is that 
of a master to his men. The crack of the party whip 
seemingly still rings, even at this late day, through 
the whole performance; and the hand which grasped 
the whip did so with a vigor not unlike that custom- 
arily displayed, in more recent decades, by the leader 
to whom political idiom has given the title of ' ' Boss." 
But the parallel goes no further. Lincoln was not 
a boss. And nothing else in his leadership even sug- 
gests the mercenary autocrats whose intrigues have, 
from time to time, brought reproach upon the whole 
field of politics, — yes, upon republican institutions 
themselves. His organization was, in fact, a very 
different affair from the corrupt local machine of a 
later period. For even political machines have no 
vices of their own. They are what the men who run 
them make them. The modern ring with its spoils- 
men, grafters, heelers, blackmailers, thugs, and 
what-not, — all held together by the cohesive power 
of public pelf and patronage, — could not have 



256 HONEST ABE 

existed for a moment where Lincoln was in control. 
Nor can we conceive of him packing primaries, ma- 
nipulating pudding ballots, falsifying election re- 
turns, or taking part in any of those numerous other 
criminal acts whereby the' wishes of honest voters 
have, on notorious occasions, been systematically 
frustrated. ^^ "He could not cheat people out of their 
votes any more than out of their money," writes 
Horace White, who enjoyed the exceptional oppor- 
tunities for close observation already spoken of. 
"Mr, Lincoln never gave his assent, so far as my 
knowledge goes, to any plan or project for getting 
votes that would not have borne the full light of 
day." ^^ He never, it is safe to add, so far as any- 
body's knowledge goes, allowed his passion for a 
triumph at the polls to blur an uncommonly clear 
vision of what was right and what was wrong. Vir- 
tue, they say, wears the garb of no party. Yet a 
Lincoln could evidently be loyal to his organization, 
— loyal, if you will, to the machine itself, — without 
losing sight of what he owed, in the last event, to his 
own ideals and to the national well-being. 

There was still another obligation, of a less lofty 
character, however, that neither parties nor princi- 
ples could make this alert politician wholly forget. 
No matter how freely he gave himself up to the pub- 
lic, his thoughts were rarely withdrawn long from 
what seemed due, as the phrase goes, to number one. 
The appetite for distinction, so frankly avowed in 
that maiden address sent out from New Salem, had 
grown by the very efforts made to satisfy it. For 
those efforts were of no laggard quality. When a 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 257 

young man, eager to .rise in the world, must first 
free himself from the triple clog of so many youthful 
aspirations, — lowly birth, ignorance, and narrow 
fortunes, — he sometimes acquires a degree of mo- 
mentum that is not diminished even after the need 
for it has ceased. This happened to Lincoln. The 
"little engine that knew no rest" stirred him to 
political action through the greater portion of his 
life, and when he did not hold a public place, he ap- 
pears to have been engaged, with occasional lulls, in 
hot pursuit of one. Here was no reluctant patriot of 
the Washington-Marshall order, waiting in dignified 
retirement for the office to seek the man. On the 
contrary, Lincoln went out to meet his honors more 
— much more — than halfway. And of all the 
faulty pictures presented by intrepid eulogists to a 
trustful world, none perhaps is further from the fact 
than that which depicts him as regretfully interrupt- 
ing the practice of the law in order to enter public 
life at the call of duty. The sober, unromantic truth 
presents quite another view. It reveals the real Lin- 
coln who ardently desired political preferment, and, 
with characteristic candor, said so. Indeed, few, if 
any, among the vote-getting campaigners of his time 
plunged into the ruck of a canvass with more spirited 
self-assertion. " Do you suppose," he once wrote to 
a grumbling young politician, "that I should ever 
have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up 
and pushed forward by older men?" ^^ 

No! Lincoln saw to his own pushing — coat off 
and sleeves rolled up. He did so, moreover, in the 
downright, honest way we should expect from him. 



258 HONEST ABE 

And some idea of how it was done — in one direc- 
tion, at least — may be gathered from an illuminat- 
ing little anecdote told recently by John W. Bunn, 
another fledgling during those early Springfield days, 
who sought office, to use his own phrase, "under the 
political wing" of that same energetic leader. 

"A day or two after my first nomination for city 
treasurer," writes Mr. Bunn, "I was going uptown 
and saw Mr. Lincoln ahead of me. He waited until 
I caught up and said to me, 'How are you running?' 
I told him I did n't know how I was running. Then 
he said, ' Have you asked anybody to vote for you?' 
I said I had not. 'Well,' said he, 'if you don't think 
enough of your success to ask anybody to vote for 
you, it is probable they will not do it, and that you 
will not be elected.' I said to him, 'Shall I ask 
Democrats to vote for me?' He said, 'Yes; ask 
everybody to vote for you.' Just then a well-known 
Democrat by the name of Ragsdale was coming up 
the sidewalk. Lincoln said, 'Now, you drop back 
there and ask Mr. Ragsdale to vote for you.' I 
turned and fell in with Mr. Ragsdale, told him of my 
candidacy, and said I hoped he would support me. 
To my astonishment, he promised me that he would. 
Mr. Lincoln walked slowly along and fell in with me 
again, and said, 'Well, what did Ragsdale say? Will 
he vote for you ? ' I said , ' Yes ; he told me he would . ' 
'Well, then,' said Lincoln, 'you are sure of two votes 
at the election, mine and Ragsdale's.' This was my 
first lesson in practical politics, and I received it 
from a high source." ^^ 

The source may indeed be called "high," from 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 259 

more than one point of view. For that term does not 
overstate the matter when it applies to a politician 
who could zealously press his own interests or those 
of his party amidst the hurly-burly of many a closely 
contested field, as Lincoln did, and at the same time 
keep clear of the mud in the low places. Confuting 
a common fallacy, he demonstrated, once for all, 
that there is no essential connection between public 
life and personal corruption. His career puts to 
shame those smug gentlemen who, cloistered in spot- 
less self-love, hold themselves aloof from active civic 
service, on the plea that politics would contaminate 
them. Of course, in their cases such fears may not be 
groundless. Perhaps these respectable citizens may 
know themselves to be weak-kneed. Perhaps their 
stumbling feet could not avoid the mire. In any 
event, they may as well be reminded that merely to 
keep clean, while shirking the work, is to practice a 
virtue of doubtful value. This man, on the other 
hand, spending his best years in the thick of things, 
and giving to each task what the task demanded, 
came through it all unsullied. 

But to infer from these activities that Lincoln was 
unduly obtrusive in advancing his political interests 
would be wide of the mark. When he did blow his' 
own trumpet, it struck a note which gave no offense. 
For from an early day he had mastered the art, so 
difficult to acquire, of pushing one's self forward 
without overstepping the bounds of decorum. There 
was an air of reserve in his demeanor at the very 
moment when those rising fortunes were urged up- 
ward most eagerly. In fact, whatever he did seemed 



26o HONEST ABE 

tinged with the lambent modesty that serves, under 
some conditions, to light up rather than to obscure 
true merit. It clearly helped Lincoln to know him- 
self and his deserts. One might say that the insight 
which made the man conscious of extraordinary 
powers left him painfully aware, as well, of their 
limitations. He could look himself in the face with 
a certain detached candor not often found among 
ambitious politicians. What is more, he could stand 
erect against other men and check off his own short- 
comings. Conceit in any form — need we add? — 
cannot thrive under such clarity of vision. At the 
same time, if this faculty for seeing things squarely 
as they are had failed Lincoln, an abiding simplicity 
of character — to say nothing about an ever-ready 
sense of humor — would doubtless have saved him 
from any exaggerated opinion of his own impor- 
tance. He certainly manifested no craving for what 
might be called honorary distinctions. Purely for- 
mal or ornamental functions, such as the chairman- 
ship of a meeting, the leading part in a civic cere- 
mony, and the like, were exceedingly distasteful to 
him ; while the master of ceremonies at some social 
entertainment, strutting about " drest in a little brief 
authority," aroused his good-natured disdain. With 
all the politician's fondness for public life and public 
office, he shrank from the mere display of himself on 
public occasions. At times, moreover, some of those 
personal tributes, so dear to the hearts of profes- 
sional big-wigs, actually distressed him. He seemed 
annoyed, to cite an instance, by a tendency to 
name children for him that set in among certain 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 261 

admirers long before his fame had become more than 
local. And even the honor of standing sponsor to a 
whole community apparently brought this unassum- 
ing man no elation. For, when his friend Whitney 
asked whether the town of Lincoln was named after 
him, he answered dryly: "Well, yes, I believe it was 
named after I was." ^^ 

Obviously, all this is not of a piece with the oft- 
quoted pride that apes humility. It should be de- 
scribed rather as the genuine modesty which had its 
origin down deep in the man's honest soul, in his own 
appraisal of his true value, made on his own sensi- 
tive scales. He could not mislead himself or others 
by false pretensions, during those aspiring times, 
any more than he had found it possible, in the old 
grocery-store days, to cheat customers with false 
weights. He frankly rated his merits quite as low as 
those around him were likely to have placed them; 
and it may be doubted whether even his intimates 
had a less exalted opinion of Abraham Lincoln than 
in the last analysis had Abraham Lincoln himself. 

This freedom from egotism impressed, sooner or 
later, all who came in contact with the man. His 
political associates, somewhat after the manner, as 
the reader may remember, of his colleagues on cir- 
cuit, bore witness to the almost humble spirit in 
which he ordinarily conducted himself. That such a 
course is likely to win popular support, disarm criti- 
cism, and turn aside the shafts of envy, might lay 
almost any politician so behaving open to the sus- 
picion of assuming a pose — any politician but a 
Lincoln. In his case, the posture accords too closely 



262 HONEST ABE 

with what we have seen of him from other angles to 
leave any doubt concerning its sincerity. For in- 
stance, the same kindly fellowship that encouraged 
beginners in the law, when they happened to ap- 
proach him after he had become a leader of the bar, 
was manifested under parallel circumstances toward 
budding politicians. Among the most brilliant of 
these may be ranked the young German refugee, 
Carl Schurz, who had interested himself in Ameri- 
can public affairs even before he could have been 
eligible to American citizenship. Having made some 
speeches in Lincoln's behalf during a memorable 
canvass, the newcomer improved an early opportun- 
ity for meeting the Sangamon chief ; and much to his 
surprise, found himself received, as he relates, with 
"offhand cordiality, like an old acquaintance." 

This must have made a vivid impression on the 
tyro's mind. Recalling the interview toward the 
close of his life, Mr. Schurz tells us, with renewed 
wonder, how unreservedly Lincoln discussed the 
campaign, and then goes on to say: "When, in a tone 
of perfect ingenuousness, he asked me — a young 
beginner in politics — what I thought about this and 
that, I should have felt myself very much honored 
by his confidence had he permitted me to regard him 
as a great man. But he talked in so simple and fa- 
miliar a strain, and his manner and homely phrase 
were so absolutely free from any semblance of self- 
consciousness or pretension to superiority, that I 
soon felt as if I had known him all my life and we 
had long been close friends." ^^ 

Among strangers, Lincoln carried himself, it is 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 263 

perhaps needless to say, equally free from any sug- 
gestion of the grand air. His commonplace — at 
times uncouth — appearance, together with his un- 
assuming ways, gave the chance comer no hint of 
the man's importance, even after he had obtained 
some measure of fame beyond the State border. On 
more than one occasion he might have exclaimed, as 
did the famous Achaean general when they found him 
meekly cutting up firewood for the hostess of Me- 
gara: " I am paying the penalty of my ugly looks." 

So different, in truth, was Lincoln's manner from 
the breezy, bumptious swagger not seldom seen 
among the public personages of his day, that only an 
observer of rare discernment would have taken him, 
at first glance, for a prominent politician. Even 
nimble-witted members of the guild themselves 
"smelt no royalty," as he once quaintly expressed it, 
in his presence. And one of them has handed down 
an amusing tale which relates how the big man's 
modest bearing hoaxed a brace of jocund statesmen 
to the top of their bent. Here is the story, as 
Thomas H. Nelson of Terre Haute, tells it on him- 
self:— 

"In the spring of 1849 Judge Abram Hammond, 
who was afterwards Governor of Indiana, and I ar- 
ranged to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in 
the stage-coach. An entire day was usually con- 
sumed in the journey. By daybreak the stage had 
arrived from the West, and as we stepped in we dis- 
covered that the entire back seat was occupied by a 
long, lank individual, whose head seemed to pro- 
trude from one end of the coach and his feet from 



264 HONEST ABE 

the other. He was the sole occupant, and was sleep- 
ing soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on 
the shoulder, and asked him if he had chartered the 
stage for the day. The stranger, now wide awake, 
responded, 'Certainly not'; and at once took the 
front seat, politely surrendering to us the place of 
honor and comfort. We took in our traveling com- 
panion at a glance. A queer, odd-looking fellow he 
was, dressed in a well-worn and ill-fitting suit of 
bombazine, without vest or cravat, and a twenty- 
five-cent palm hat on the back of his head. His 
very prominent features in repose seemed dull and 
expressionless. Regarding him as a good subject for 
merriment we perpetrated several jokes. He took 
them all with the utmost innocence and good-nature, 
and joined in the laugh, although at his own expense. 
"At noon we stopped at a wayside hostelry for 
dinner. We invited him to eat with us, and he 
approached the table as if he considered it a great 
honor. He sat with about half his person on a small 
chair, and held his hat under his arm during the 
meal. Resuming our journey after dinner, conver- 
sation drifted into a discussion of the comet, a sub- 
ject that was then agitating the scientific world, in 
which the stranger took the deepest interest. He 
made many startling suggestions and asked many 
questions. We amazed him with 'words of learned 
length and thundering sound.' After an astounding 
display of wordy pyrotechnics the dazed and bewil- 
dered stranger asked, 'What is going to be the up- 
shot of this comet business?' I replied that I was 
not certain, in fact, I differed from most scientists 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 265 

and philosophers, and was inclined to the opinion 
that the world would follow the darned thing off! 

"Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, 
and hurried to Browning's Hotel, losing sight of the 
stranger altogether. We retired to our room to brush 
and wash away the dust of the journey. In a few 
minutes I descended to the portico, and there de- 
scried our long, gloomy fellow-traveler in the center 
of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom were 
Judges McLean and Huntington, Edward Hanni- 
gan, Albert S. White, and Richard W. Thompson, 
who seemed to be amused and interested in a story 
he was telling. I enquired of Browning, the land- 
lord, who he was. 'Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, a 
member of Congress,' was the response. I was 
thunderstruck at the announcement. I hastened 
upstairs and told Hammond the startling news, and 
together we emerged from the hotel by a back door 
and went down an alley to another house, thus 
avoiding further contact with our now distinguished 
fellow-traveler." ^^ 

As these two wags sneak sheepishly away from 
their recent butt, they present a comical reminder of 
that time-honored aphorism: "The world receives 
an unknown person according to his appearance; it 
takes leave of him according to his merits." True, 
our crestfallen Hoosiers did not themselves sense the 
worth concealed under Lincoln's homespun man- 
ners ; yet for this the man who had so neatly gulled 
them could hardly be blamed. He paid the m.erry 
jesters in their own coin, so to say; and if they failed 
to notice the twinkle of his keen gray eyes as he 



266 HONEST ABE 

made change, no one was at fault but themselves. 
The ethics of practical joking had been observed 
fairly enough. At all events, the gentlemen from 
Indiana, so far as is known, set up no claim to the 
contrary. 

Lincoln's energies were not confined, however, to 
such encounters. Within the party itself occasion- 
ally arose contests between rival leaders that dif- 
fered widely from the usual election campaigns 
against the common enemy; and it is of interest to 
see how "Honest Abe," under these more delicate 
circumstances, conducted himself. A typical in- 
stance was that of his canvass for Congress. This 
began as early as 1842 when, upon the completion 
of a fourth term in the Illinois House of Represen- 
tatives, he declined the proffered renomination, but 
not because he wished to retire from public life. 
"His ambition," as one intimate friend declared, 
"was a little engine that knew no rest." It seemed 
always speeding him toward higher levels. A seat in 
the National House had now become his goal; and 
with characteristic directness, he announced himself 
as a candidate for the promotion. An attempt, ob- 
viously not so direct, was made to turn him aside; 
for we find among his letters this word of warning, 
addressed at the time to a correspondent in Cass 
County: "If you should hear any one say that 
Lincoln don't want to go to Congress, I wish you, 
as a personal friend of mine, would tell him you 
have reason to believe he is mistaken. The truth is 
I would like to go very much." ^° 

In those days the Springfield District, as it was 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 267 

sometimes called, had become a Whig stronghold to 
such a degree that whoever received the endorse- 
ment of the party there on the Congressional ticket 
might well feel assured of his election. Naturally the 
prospect attracted other ambitious young politicians 
besides Lincoln. He found himself strongly opposed 
for the nomination by Edward Dickinson Baker, of 
his own county, and General John J. Hardin, of 
Black Hawk War fame, from Morgan County. The 
preliminary canvass was uncommonly warm. It 
appears to have reached a white heat, at almost the 
very outset, between Lincoln and Baker in their 
struggle for the control of the delegation which San- 
gamon should send to the nominating convention. 
Both men were popular, but Baker's longer resi- 
dence in the State, his charm of manner, his dash- 
ing personality, and his remarkable talent for im- 
promptu oratory gave him an advantage, which 
enthusiastic friends sought still further to improve 
by tactics manifestly open to criticism, especially 
when employed in a party contest. For, strange to 
relate, a personal campaign of an abusive nature was 
waged against the man from New Salem. His recent 
faithful leadership on the floor of the Legislature 
had, for the moment, in some quarters at least, ap- 
parently been forgotten; while his marriage during 
the year to Mary Todd, whose religious affiliations 
— unlike those of the Bakers — were not with the 
potent Campbelllte Church, became by cunningly 
contrived suggestion an adverse issue of seeming Im- 
portance. Moreover, his own alleged irreligion, 
slyly hinted at, a duel that had been talked of but 



268 HONEST ABE 

had never been fought, ^^ an unpopular temperance 
address recently delivered, and, above all, his con- 
nection through the young wife with her prominent, 
perhaps too self-satisfied, relations, were severally 
urged in various directions as good reasons for with- 
holding the desired support. 

What particularly pained Lincoln was this last 
count in the indictment. For one who had so re- 
cently been a "friendless, uneducated, penniless boy 
working on a flat-boat at ten dollars per month," 
to be "put down" — we are quoting his own pro- 
test — "as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aris- 
tocratic family distinction," must have felt odd 
beyond measure. ^^ It is not surprising that, with all 
his political acumen, he was at a loss for an adequate 
reply. What reply, indeed, can one make to such a 
charge! He tried to laugh it ofi^, meeting the story 
of those high-bred relatives with the whimsical re- 
mark: "Well, that sounds strange to me. I do not 
remember of but one who ever came to see me, and 
while he was in town he was accused of stealing a 
jew's-harp." ^^ 

Still the canard persisted, though the fact that it 
ever received serious attention must be counted 
among the mysteries of Illinois politics; unless per- 
haps a faint suggestion of an explanation is to be 
found in Lincoln's own demeanor. He was, it is true, 
a commoner, a man of the people, if there ever has 
been one in American public affairs. His democratic 
ways, unpretentious garb, and homely fashion of 
speech were as truly expressive of the man as were 
his sympathetic dealings, in all the essentials of life, 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 269 

with the plain citizens around him. But he neither 
flattered them nor catered to their prejudices. Lin- 
coln was no demagogue. Coming upon the scene 
with a generation of pioneers whose antipathy to- 
ward the so-called aristocrats naturally had its cor- 
responding reaction in a fondness for men of their 
own kind, he made it a point, nevertheless, to ask 
for support wholly on his merits; and practiced none 
of those crude arts whereby politicians of that day 
too often courted popular favor. ^^ In fact, he went 
at times as far the other way, and bluntly declined 
so to cheapen himself. 

A case in point occurred on the occasion of his 
address before an agricultural society, when he said : 
"I presume I am not expected to employ the time 
assigned me in the mere flattery of the farmers as 
a class. My opinion of them is that, in proportion 
to numbers, they are neither better nor worse than 
other people. In the nature of things they are more 
numerous than any other class; and I believe there 
really are more attempts at flattering them than any 
other, the reason for which I cannot perceive unless 
it be that they can cast more votes than any other. 
On reflection, I am not quite sure that there is not 
cause of suspicion against you in selecting me, in 
some sort a politician and in no sort a farmer, to 
address you." ^^ 

These words — we must add — were uttered 
some years later, but they nicely illustrate the 
speaker's bearing throughout his political career. 
The compelling candor which led him to speak so 
was, in truth, the very essence of the man. He could 



270 HONEST ABE 

not do otherwise. And therein, perhaps, lay some 
explanation of why it was difficult for him, during 
this congressional contest, to meet the charge of 
having joined the so-called privileged class, — par- 
ticularly as the accusation came from members of 
his own party. ^^ 

That Baker himself had anything to do with the 
misconduct of these overzealous partisans, Lincoln 
refused to believe.^' Still he could not close his eyes 
to the inroads which their attacks made upon his 
strength in the county. And when the Sangamon 
Whigs met, in the spring of 1843, to elect delegates 
for the District Convention, Baker was clearly their 
choice. The meeting so voted. But its confidence 
in the rejected candidate was evinced, to a note- 
worthy extent, by his selection as a member of the 
delegation, instructed to cast Sangamon's ballot at 
the convention for his successful opponent. This 
placed Lincoln in an embarrassing position ; and he 
tried, though without avail, to be excused. Com- 
menting on the singular occurrence to his absent 
friend Speed, he wrote: "The meeting, in spite of my 
attempt to decline it, appointed me one of the dele- 
gates; so that in getting Baker the nomination, I 
shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made 
a groomsman to a man that has cut him out and is 
marrying his own dear 'gal.'" °^ 

There was this difference, however. The grooms- 
man usually renounces his hopes at the church door; 
whereas Lincoln, for a time at least after the meet- 
ing, still considered himself, in some degree, a can- 
didate. Expecting his old neighbors in the New 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 271 

Salem-Petersburg vicinage to instruct a Menard 
County delegation for him, he figured out a combin- 
ation whereby they might, under certain conditions, 
cast the deciding votes in the convention. "It is 
truly gratifying to me," he wrote Martin M. Morris, 
one of these supporters, "to learn that while the 
people of Sangamon have cast me off, my old friends 
of Menard, who have known me longest and best, 
stick to me." 

After outlining the situation, with the terse, firm 
strokes of a skilled politician, he continued: "You 
say you shall instruct your delegates for me, unless 
I object. I certainly shall not object. That would 
be too pleasant a compliment for me to tread in 
the dust. And besides, if anything should happen 
(which, however, is not probable) by which Baker 
should be thrown out of the fight, I would be at lib- 
erty to accept the nomination if I could get it. I do, 
however, feel myself bound not to hinder him in any 
way from getting the nomination. I should despise 
myself were I to attempt it. I think, then, it would 
be proper for your meeting to appoint three dele- 
gates, and to instruct them to go for some one as a 
first choice, some one else as a second, and perhaps 
some one as a third; and if in those instructions I 
were named as the first choice, it would gratify me 
very much." ^^ 

This letter furnishes another revelation of how 
tight a grip Lincoln's ambition, carrying him along 
at top speed, had upon his movements; and by that 
same token, of how tight a grip he meant to keep, in 
any event, upon the restraining brake, which was so 



272 HONEST ABE 

rarely allowed to leave his watchful hand. Whether 
he could have maintained his moral equilibrium, 
however, in the District Convention, as a delegate 
instructed for one candidate while he permitted his 
friends to support another candidate, and that can- 
didate himself, raises, under all the circumstances, 
a delicate question in political ethics. Happily, 
Lincoln was not called upon to try it out. By the 
time the delegates gathered at Pekin, he and Baker 
were both outdistanced by General Hardin, who 
promptly became the choice of a far from harmoni- 
ous convention. 

Then ensued an incident which, besides having a 
controlling influence toward the shaping of local 
politics for some years to come, caused controver- 
sies later of more than local importance. This is how 
it came about. No sooner had the vote been taken 
than Lincoln walked across the room to James M. 
Ruggles, one of the Hardin delegates, and asked him 
whether he would favor a resolution recommending 
Baker for the succeeding congressional term. Rug- 
gles, who was fond of that gentleman, readily con- 
sented, so Lincoln said : "You prepare the resolution, 
I will support it, and I think we can pass it." ^° 

The motion is said to have "created a profound 
sensation, especially with the friends of Hardin." 
Some of them warmly objected, but it was passed, 
nevertheless, by a very close vote. The proposition 
should, indeed, have been well received. It belonged 
to that class of convention devices which is some- 
times designated as "good politics." The contest 
had stirred up much feeling, and Lincoln, like the 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 273 

alert party leader that he was, took this means of 
placating a disgruntled faction. "So far as I can 
judge from present appearances," he declared, "we 
shall have no split or trouble about the matter. All 
will be harmony." ^^ And when the nominee wrote a 
letter, after the convention, expressing some doubt 
as to whether the Whigs of Sangamon would sup- 
port him, Lincoln replied: "You may, at once, dis- 
miss all fears on that subject. We have already re- 
solved to make a particular effort to give you the 
very largest majority possible in our county. From 
this, no Whig of the county dissents. We have many 
objects for doing it. We make it a matter of honor 
and pride to do it; we do it, because we love the 
Whig cause; we do it, because we like you person- 
ally; and last, we wish to convince you, that we do 
not bear that hatred to Morgan County, that you 
people have so long seemed to imagine. You will see 
by the Journal of this week, that we propose, upon 
pain of losing a Barbecue, to give you twice as great 
a majority in this county as you shall receive in your 
own. I got up the proposal." ^^ 

This magnanimous treatment of Hardin, like 
the resolution in Baker's favor, is noteworthy. Yet 
here again — of a truth, in neither case — did Lin- 
coln wholly neglect his own aspirations. Though he 
regarded both these men with sincere good- will, and 
stepped aside for them with unruffled temper, it was 
in the hope that his turn would come next. Some 
of the party leaders, in fact, eventually worked out 
an arrangement whereby John J. Hardin, Edward 
Dickinson Baker, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen 



274 HONEST ABE 

Trigg Logan succeeded one another in the Whig 
nomination of the district, for a single congressional 
term each. That this bargain or deal — to use fa- 
miliar political expressions — existed has been ve- 
hemently denied. And in the nature of such affairs, 
it may well be doubted whether there was a definite 
agreement to which the parties in interest gave their 
formal approval. The Hardin following, for one, ap- 
pears to have acquiesced unwillingly, if indeed it 
actually assented at all. Still, no less an authority 
than Lincoln himself tells us of "an understanding 
among Whig friends," whereby each of these men 
received the nomination in turn.^' And this under- 
standing, in part at least, had its public ratification, 
if not its origin, as we have seen, with his resolution 
endorsing Baker. Although politicians usually con- 
ceal such transactions, because they are looked upon 
by the voters with disfavor, and although some 
through-thick-and-thin eulogists, trembling for the 
fair fame of their hero, have refused to believe that 
Lincoln did anything at this point which savored of 
intrigue, he himself manifestly made no secret of the 
matter nor of his hand in it. A thoroughgoing candi- 
date from start to finish, this man, honorable as he 
was, played his game according to the standards of 
the aggressive political school in which he had been 
bred. But he played it openly. He saw no harm in 
that group of aspirants "making a slate," as the 
process is sometimes called; and under all the cir- 
cumstances, neither do we. 

The Sangamon chief, true to his pledge, loyally 
supported the nominee of the convention. General 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 275 

Hardin, triumphant at the polls, went to Congress. 
And when, by reason of a change in the time for 
holding the next election, it became necessary, dur- 
ing the following year, to name his successor, he gave 
way in Baker's favor, as the Pekin resolution had 
provided. Naturally Lincoln, the father of that 
measure, did likewise. In fact, he worked no less 
faithfully for rival number two than he had for rival 
number one, and Baker was duly chosen. ^^ Then at 
last, in 1846, came Lincoln's turn. Expecting to 
reap the reward of his patience, he struck out vig- 
orously for the nomination. But to his chagrin, 
Hardin, ready to make the race for another term, 
threatened again to block the way; while Judge 
Logan, the remaining claimant on the slate, had 
also entered the field, demanding precedence over 
Lincoln on the ground of seniority as well as of valu- 
able services to the party. Whether this latter can- 
didature was entirely sincere, or whether it should 
be deemed one of those back-firing devices to head 
off other aspirants, so often employed by poHtical 
strategists, cannot, at this late day, be determined. 
True, the dissolution of partnership at law between 
Logan and Lincoln, several years before, had been 
due, in a degree at least, to the conflicting congres- 
sional ambitions of its members. Still, nothing that 
then took place was rasping enough, so far as is 
known, to keep them from entering into an "under- 
standing" for their mutual benefit. At all events, 
Logan can hardly be said to have made a very vigor- 
ous start and, after a brief reconnoissance of the 
district, he withdrew gracefully in Lincoln's favor. 



276 HONEST ABE 

Hardin was not so easily disposed of. Denying 
that there had been any agreement personally on 
his part to rest content with one term, he declared 
himself betimes a candidate for another nomination. 
Lincoln's rejoinder was the maxim, — "Turn about 
is fair play." He called this his "only argument," 
and proceeded in effect to make it the slogan of an 
energetic campaign. A less inspiring issue on which 
to ask for political support is not often presented. 
Yet this was the issue, and Lincoln candidly said so. 
With a freedom from the customary cant of "public 
servants" that is really refreshing, he canvassed the 
party on personal grounds, but without personali- 
ties. His supporters were cautioned against saying 
anything unkind about Hardin; and when he himself 
made any reference to his adversary, it was in terms 
of friendly appreciation. Lincoln wanted that office. 
He wanted it badly. But his ever-present sense of 
fairness saved him from resentment toward the 
Bakers and Hardins who wanted it, too. They were 
entitled to a place in the sun. And even the fact 
that one who had basked in its warmth for a season 
was trying now to elbow him back when his turn 
came, did not ruffle the man's good humor. Yet he 
stood his ground firmly, while insisting, with win- 
some naivete, on "a fair shake." So when General 
Hardin made a crafty suggestion that the candidates 
should agree respectively to "remain in their own 
counties," Lincoln promptly declined, with the obvi- 
ous explanation: "It seems to me that on reflection 
you will see, the fact of your having been in Congress 
has, in various ways, so spread your name in the dis- 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 277 

trict, as to give you a decided advantage in such a 
stipulation." 

His reasons, given in the same letter, for refusing 
to walk into the general's other cunningly contrived 
pitfalls, were equally cogent; while the temper of the 
missive, as a whole, may be inferred from the pretty 
little apology: "I have always been in the habit of 
acceding to almost any proposal that a friend would 
make, and I am truly sorry that I cannot in this." ^^ 

Hardin, on his part, was apparently not so ami- 
able. The general's supporters were allowed to assail 
Lincoln in somewhat the same manner that Baker's 
friends had done three years before. Indeed, they 
may have been even less scrupulous. For one of Lin- 
coln's youthful lieutenants, G. W. Harris, tells us 
how, disheartened by their methods, he went to his 
chief in the heat of the canvass, and declared that it 
was useless to proceed any further unless the object 
of these assaults was willing to adopt similar tactics. 
Without any show of feeling, Lincoln replied: " Gib- 
son, I want to be nominated ; I should like very much 
to go to Congress ; but unless I can get there by fair 
means, I shall not go. If it depends on some other 
course, I will stay at home." ^^ 

" That settled it," Harris adds. But things hardly 
went as he had predicted. Not long thereafter his 
leader's scruples were vindicated, on even the poli- 
tician's narrow ground, by Hardin's withdrawal from 
the contest, in a generous letter, which left the field 
to our Springfield friend unopposed. So it came to 
pass that when the Whig District Convention met 
early in May, 1846, the name of this sole remaining 



278 HONEST ABE 

candidate was duly presented by Judge Logan and 
Lincoln received a unanimous nomination. 

The Democrats put forward as their candidate 
the well-known Methodist circuit-rider, Peter Cart- 
wright. He gave promise of making a formidable 
antagonist. Few men had more friends throughout 
the district, and indeed, throughout the State. His 
robust ministry, as he traveled on horseback un- 
daunted by frontier hardships from place to place, 
brought him into intimate, at times even sacred, 
relations with the people. They cherished, in their 
rough way, a fondness for the man whose piety 
and never-failing human sympathy had made him 
through all the shifting years, whether at wed- 
dings, christenings, sick-beds, or funerals, the de- 
pendable partner of their joys and their sorrows. 
A preacher, moreover, of the church-militant, he 
compelled respect among these sturdy pioneers by 
his physical, no less than by his spiritual, qualities. 
As became one who patrolled in autocratic fashion 
"the country of superior men," he was wont, when 
occasion served, to pound out a sermon or knock out 
a service-disturbing brawler, with equal force, and 
— if the truth must be told — with equal relish. 
But the aggressive elements in Cartwright's make-up 
found still freer vent on the several occasions when 
he sought to transmute all this popularity into votes. 
For somewhat after the manner of the high priests in 
Israel, the "Apostle of the West," as he was some- 
times called, aspired to combine religion with state- 
craft. A Jacksonian Democrat of the uncompromis- 
ing type, his politics like his theology belonged to the 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 279 

hard-shell variety; and few campaigners could give 
a better account of themselves on the stump. If 
rugged eloquence failed to produce the desired effect, 
a certain nimble-witted humor might be depended 
on to carry the day for him. He had, in fact, been 
elected or, more precisely speaking, reelected, to the 
State Legislature when Lincoln suffered his first, his 
only, rebuff at the polls, fourteen years before; and 
with the two men now pitted against each other 
again — this time on a larger field — the Democrats 
naturally expected to bring about a repetition of 
that defeat. 

But the Lincoln who faced Cartwright in 1846 
was a different adversary from the comparatively 
unknown novice who had gone down before the fa- 
mous preacher in 1832. Since then the younger man 
must have learned many practical lessons in the 
school of politics, and learned them well, for his con- 
gressional canvass is described as a model of skillful 
electioneering. It left unturned, in all the district, 
no stone beneath which might lurk a favorable 
vote ; while it met, with similar alertness, every issue 
raised by the enemy, or more accurately speaking, 
every issue but one — that of religion. 

The charge of impiety, covertly made in former 
primary contests, as we have seen, by Lincoln's own 
Whig associates, was now publicly urged against 
him with far greater earnestness by his Democratic 
opponents. What ground they had for their accu- 
sations cannot conveniently be considered at this 
point. The assailed candidate himself shrewdly 
refrained from taking any public notice of the 



28o HONEST ABE 

matter, and he impressed upon his lieutenants the 
wisdom of exercising similar forbearance. Here was 
one of those rare junctures in which your true leader 
may be recognized, not so much by what he does as 
by what he omits to do. Lincoln confidently left 
this issue in the hands of the people. They have 
on repeated occasions been known to meet it with 
appropriate vigor, yet nearly every generation of 
politicians must be taught the lesson anew. The 
man who lays Religion by the heels, and drags her 
through the mire of a political campaign for the 
votes that may adhere to the soiled vestments, usu- 
ally bends so low over his narrow course that he does 
not see, until too late, the shocked devotees, on the 
one hand, deserting him because he has profaned a 
scared thing, nor the indignant citizens on the other, 
turning from him because he would obtrude sec- 
tarian influences where they have no business — 
in purely secular affairs. Even the popularity of a 
Cartwright sags under such a strain. Moreover, his 
sterling character gave him no countervailing ad- 
vantage in that particular contest. For when it 
came to the weighing of these opposing candidates 
— cleric against skeptic, saint against sinner — by 
almost any voter's own work-a-day standards, the 
rectitude of Lincoln's life at the bar, no less than the 
notable honesty of his politics, dressed the balance 
between the two champions, so far as practical 
ethics went, to a nicety. This left the revulsion from 
bigotry that touched broad-minded men in both 
parties, together with the normal preponderance of 
the Whigs and the superior campaigning tactics 



HONESTY IN POLITICS 281 

of their leader, to tip the scales finally in his favor. As 
the canvass drew near its close, not a few of the 
Democrats are said to have looked upon him with 
kindly eyes. But party feelings ran so strong in 
those days that to support a candidate on the oppos- 
ing side involved a wrench to cherished traditions 
from which these alien well-wishers, these friends 
the enemy, naturally, for the most part, recoiled. 
One of them, doubtless a typical instance, coming to 
Lincoln in such a dilemma, declared himself willing 
to cast a Whig ballot if it were needed to defeat 
Cartwright. The sacrifice, he thought, should be 
required only in the event of a very close struggle; 
and the Whig captain, accepting this view, agreed 
to let him know how the contest stood. Accordingly, 
right before election-day, Lincoln having made one 
of those clever forecasts for which he was noted, 
released his provisional recruit with the announce- 
ment: "I have got the preacher, and don't want 
your vote." ^^ 

He certainly did have the preacher. When re- 
turns came in, it was found that a considerable num- 
ber of Democrats, setting public spirit above parti- 
san prejudice, after all, had given their adherence to 
the Whig nominee. Lincoln led Cartwright at the 
polls by 151 1 votes. How splendid a victory this 
was, and how much of it may be credited to Demo- 
cratic defections, will be understood when it is re- 
called that the same district had, in the preceding 
presidential campaign, given electors for Henry 
Clay, the popular Whig standard-bearer, 'a plural- 
ity of but 914. "Lincoln's election by the large 



282 HONEST ABE 

majority he received," said Governor Reynolds, com- 
menting on the congressional contest some years 
later, "was the finest compliment personally and the 
highest political endorsement any man could expect, 
and such as I have never seen surpassed." ^^ These 
superlatives hardly overstated the case. No previous 
Whig campaigner of the district had in fact achieved 
such results; and so fully did they justify Lincoln's 
persistent demands upon his party for the nomina- 
tion that his election must have brought him a 
double measure of gratification. 

Then, however, came the all but inevitable reac- 
tion. That triumph, so long deferred and so pa- 
tiently wrought out, fell short of what his ambitious 
fancy had pictured. The sub-acid tang, which de- 
tracts too often from our complete enjoyment of 
life's sweetest morsels, entered into the victor's 
spirit at the moment of achievement, and left him 
disappointed. Addressing his sympathetic friend 
Speed — the other self of those days — in much the 
same vein as the great Roman politician Cicero was 
wont to employ toward his intimate Atticus, when 
eclipsing shadows of depression marred the joy 
of some brilliant exploit, Lincoln wrote: "Being 
elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to 
our friends for having done it, has not pleased me 
as much as I expected." ^^ 



THE END 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 




ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

The morning that my father finished that concluding 
paragraph — the last that he ever wrote — he called 
mother into the study. With an air of mysterious solem- 
nity, belied by the twinkle in his eye, he beckoned her 
to the desk. 

"Meta, if you promise not to tell a soul, I '11 tell you a 
state secret," he said. "I've got Lincoln to Congress at 
last." Then more earnestly he continued: "It was n't an 
easy job either. I 've fought all his battles side by side 
with him, and the world will probably never know how 
hard we toiled and moiled together." 

These words exactly expressed his relationship to his 
work. During the twenty-three years that he devoted 
to the study and interpretation of Abraham Lincoln, he 
lived with him in spirit as the great novelists have lived 
with the children of their fancies. Lincoln's sorrows and 
triumphs and defeats were as real to him as those of his 
own life. It is small wonder, therefore, that when men 
who had known Lincoln read Lincoln, Master of Men, 
they frequently mistook its author for an intimate con- 
temporary of the great President. 

Though not of the same generation as Lincoln, my 
father's life was, in a trivial way, associated with it at 
the start. He was born in New York City on the evening 
of a Lincoln rally at Cooper LTnion, October 30, 1862. 
The family physician was at the meeting when the time 
became ripe for his services, so my grandfather followed 
him there, somehow found him in the vast crowd, and 
worked upon his sense of duty so that he consented to 
forego the speeches, and returned with my grandfather 
to the Rothschild home. 

One is tempted to speculate whether or not, as the 



286 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

doctor looked down at the boy whose birth had prevented 
him from hearing eminent men discuss the President, — 
whether or not some confiding Fate whispered to him a 
half-articulate prophecy that that same boy was one day 
to be among the most deep-seeing interpreters of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Interesting as this coincidence is, in the light of suc- 
ceeding developments, it is, of course, quite devoid of 
significance. Not until some years later did Abraham 
Lincoln actually become an influence in my father's life. 

Probably it was his father who first planted the seed 
of admiration for Lincoln in his mind, for John Roths- 
child came to America with an influx of German revolu- 
tionists — men of the Carl Schurz stamp — and to him, 
as to so many of those who came in that wave of immi- 
gration, "Lincoln became an ideal, — a prophet." 

Just as some knowledge of my father's parentage helps 
to an understanding of his interest in Abraham Lincoln, 
it enables one better to comprehend several of his per- 
sonal characteristics. The thoroughness that fortified all 
his undertakings may be attributed to his unmixed 
German blood. For his mother as well as his father was 
German. She was known as "Beautiful Kate," but a 
remarkable amiability that poverty and the raising of a 
large family never impaired was her outstanding char- 
acteristic. The evenness of disposition that my father 
inherited from her combined strangely with a certain 
fiery impetuosity and violence of temper that was of 
paternal origin, so that his ordinary mildness and long- 
suffering sometimes blazed out into a Jovian wrath. 
From both parents equally, he derived a sturdy honesty, 
common sense, and humor, while to his father in particu- 
lar he owed a ready wit and skill in repartee. 

Beyond the excellence of his parentage, there was 
nothing particularly auspicious about the conditions of 
my father's early life. John Rothschild was an invalid, 
and his various attempts to get on in the world were un- 
successful. Furthermore, there were six complications 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 287 

in the bread-and-butter problem of which my father was 
the fourth. But nature had equipped him splendidly for 
the upward battle that those must wage who would rise 
from the ranks. While there cannot have been much 
suggestive of the fighter in the frail little chap who was 
"Lonny" Rothschild, yet a cool sureness of purpose and 
virile resourcefulness often won him the palm in unequal 
encounters with bullies as well as in the subtler battles of 
school and daily life. 

There is a story that testifies to his resourcefulness and 
at the same time indicates his literary instinct. " Lonny 's " 
family lived on Fifty-fourth Street and his school was at 
Thirteenth Street, two miles away. He could afford the 
horse cars only on his way to school, and used to return 
afoot. His chum, however, whose parents were in better 
circumstances, received two car fares daily and was 
expected to ride both ways. One day, by the promise of 
a story, "Lonny" inveigled the youngster into walking 
home with him. The story proved to be an exciting serial 
that never ended, so that henceforth the author always 
had company on these journeys. And what is more, not 
only were his spirits fortified by company, but his inner 
being was regaled with the refreshments that he per- 
suaded young Croesus to buy along the way with the mis- 
appropriated car fares. 

Generally speaking, "Lon" did not care much for the 
company of his schoolmates or for their games. He pre- 
ferred a book to a game of ball. In fact he used habitu- 
ally to get his one pair of shoes wet so that he might be 
allowed to curl up in an armchair before the kitchen stove 
with a biography or some standard novel. 

There was a periodical shop in the neighborhood, where 
he spent part of his spare time, helping the proprietor 
and, in lieu of pay, gorging himself indiscriminately on 
the literature that lined the walls. Heterodox as it may 
be to say so, "Jack Harkaway" and the other yellow- 
backs which he read there, had a beneficial effect on 
his style. They developed the virility and feeling for 



288 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

dramatic sequences that later constituted his main lit- 
erary charm. 

But perhaps the most germinal of all these early liter- 
ary habits was his daily custom of reading the newspaper 
to his invalid father. Those were the Reconstruction 
days, when the blunders of certain of Lincoln's successors 
called forth constant editorial comment on "How Lin- 
coln would have done it." The spirit of reverence and 
admiration for the great President that the press exhaled 
must have stimulated tremendously the hero-worship 
that had already taken root in the enthusiastic mind of 
the lad. 

Somewhat of an idealist, as this would suggest, almost 
from the first, Alonzo Rothschild was never a mere 
dreamer. The same balance that contributed so to his 
success throughout later life was already ingrained in his 
make-up. He was earnest, but fun-lovdng; frail, yet red- 
blooded; youthful, and still mature; idealistic, but none 
the less practical. 

His practical powers had an opportunity to expand as 
soon as he was old enough to run errands. From that 
time on until he left college, his summer vacations were 
spent in the employ of some firm, earning a little money 
and learning something of business methods. The first 
of these summer positions was with a leather importer, 
who, largely in jest, set him the task of making a cable 
code. What the merchant meant in fun, my father took 
in earnest, and some time thereafter he handed his 
employer a code so well worked out, and so beautifully 
written, that for weeks the man proudly exhibited it to 
every member of the trade who entered the office. 

Such precocity often engenders superficiality, but his 
was the rare brilliance that does not catch at sunbeams, 
but is content to labor. This appeared in school as well 
as in his summer work, for the abstract desire to do 
effectively whatever might come to hand was reinforced, 
in school, by ambition and directed by a passion for 
knowledge. 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 289 

At the age of fourteen he entered the College of the 
City of New York, where he took his first independent 
step into journalism. One of his summer positions had 
been with an art magazine which employed him as " office 
boy, devil, and General Utility, — his only military 
distinction." The force was small and the office boy's 
functions corresponded with the range of his abilities. 
He ran errands, received visitors, read proof or compiled 
articles for publication, as occasion demanded. 

With this varied experience, as a background, the lad 
started a college publication called The Free Press. The 
paper was intrinsically modest, but when one considers 
that the bulk of the work was borne by one boy and that 
the publication was successful enough to pay that boy's 
expenses, the matter appears in a wholly different light. 

He did almost everything connected with The Free 
Press save the printing. He wrote the jokes, editorials, 
stories, and news items. But so effectively did he attack 
certain obnoxious faculty measures that he was com- 
pelled to work behind a mask of anonymity, thus forfeit- 
ing the prestige that his achievement would normally 
have given him in the eyes of his fellow students. 

Although his connection with the paper remained a 
secret during his college years, it caused his downfall. So 
much of his time did the undertaking absorb that in 
his junior year, he failed to pass his examinations. This 
slump from honors to failure, however, did not destroy 
the confidence that his teachers had in his inherent worth, 
for when he decided to finish at Cornell, the president of 
the College gave him a warm letter of introduction to the 
president of the other institution. 

The plan to transfer to Cornell was never consum- 
mated. His brother Meyer, who favored it strongly and 
who was furnishing him the means, went to Europe that 
summer on business, and in his absence my father decided 
that the hour had come for him to assume a share in his 
brother's burdens. Acting upon this decision, he turned to 
newspaper work, and his brother upon his return found 



290 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

him reporting for the Commerical Advertiser. Yet, even 
with the college doors closing behind him and the bitter, 
dubious, financial battle ahead, my father determined to 
return to college in ten years. His first news assignment 
cannot have cast much of the sunshine of hope upon his 
ambitions. It was a dog-show. But he soon demon- 
strated his ability so conclusively that it became the rule 
to billet him for important assignments. And a few 
months later he was selected to interview Thomas A. 
Edison. 

He had notable success as an interviewer, a success that 
he owed to his scrupulous accuracy. He recognized two 
obligations, — an obligation to the newspaper and an 
obligation to the person who had entrusted him with the 
publication of his opinions. But it did not take him long 
to discover that in the newspaper world faithful service 
such as his waits long for even meager rewards, so after 
a few months with the Commercial Advertiser, he turned 
his back on journalism and entered the employ of a 
wholesale gem company. There his promotion was steady 
and he even learned the business well enough to travel 
for the firm. After several years, however, he decided 
that early financial independence and consequent free- 
dom for literary pursuits could not come to him if he 
remained a "hireling." He therefore cast about until he 
found what seemed an opportunity, and having matured 
his plans with the precision of a military strategist, he 
started out at the age of twenty-two to be his own 
employer. 

His new venture carried him back again into the field 
of journalism. The jewelry trade publications of the day 
were monthlies or semi-monthlies and though better than 
the common run of their contemporaries in trade journal- 
ism, they were contemptible when judged by twentieth- 
century journalistic standards. Their only aim was to 
sell advertising space and they subordinated everything 
to that one purpose. Their pages were given over to 
"puffs " and inadequate news items, and to dull technical 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 291 

articles. They published the news or suppressed it at 
the will of powerful advertisers. 

Mr. Rothschild planned a weekly which was to publish 
the jewelry news with the impersonal completeness of a 
daily newspaper; whose editorial comment was to be 
"brief, conservative and absolutely independent of 
advertisers"; and in which "pufifs" were to be confined 
to a single column where brevity and moderation were to 
obtain. As a partner in the enterprise, he chose a man 
whose previous experience in the field led him to value 
his services. 

A class publication conducted on such principles was 
an innovation and the graybeards shook their heads. 
Their belief that the whole thing was the disordered 
dream of a Don Quixote and his Sancho was strengthened 
into certainty when it became known that Mr. Roths- 
child allowed none of his agents to treat customers. In 
the light of their experience it was as necessary to clinch 
a contract with a drink as it was to ingratiate one's self 
by a judicious suppression of news, and a lavish use of 
"puffs." 

Had the founder of The Jewelers' Weekly been merely 
an idealist, their prophecies would have been justified. 
But so completely did his new paper cover the activities 
of the jewelry world that no jeweler could keep abreast 
of the trade without reading it. Such an indispensable 
organ was logically a valuable advertising medium, and 
before long disgruntled advertisers came trooping back 
with contracts, quite willing to let the young editor deter- 
mine his own policies. What those policies were may be 
inferred from a law which owes its presence on the 
statute books of New York to the activities of The 
Jewelers' Weekly. The law is that which forbids a pawn- 
broker to receive a pledge from any one under sixteen 
years of age. The need for it was first revealed by an 
expos6 in The Jewelers' Weekly and its passage was due 
largely to Mr. Rothschild's efforts. 

Not only was the Weekly a power for good, but its 



292 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

editor, though not much more than twenty, became the 
recognized "guide, philosopher, and friend" of the trade. 
He took a friendly interest in the affairs of all his custom- 
ers, particularly the small men whom it was his delight 
to nurse along with advice and assistance, helping them 
often to achieve great success. 

In this respect and in several others, Mr. Rothschild 
showed himself to be no mere seeker after wealth. It is 
true that he was in business with the avowed purpose of 
making a competency rapidly, but while in the game he 
played it as much for its own sake as for the prize. Writ- 
ing in his diary concerning the famous "Birthday Num- 
ber," the finest thing of its day in trade journalism, he 
said; "My ambition is to make this the handsomest and 
most readable volume ever issued by a trade publica- 
tion." That and similar utterances indicate that his 
interest in the Weekly was not focused entirely on its 
money-getting powers. 

Because of ill health, his partner withdrew from the 
firm after a few years, leaving him a free hand in all 
departments, editorial and financial, and he was able to 
test his theories to the limit. In the six months following 
he made the Weekly a landmark in trade journalism be- 
sides increasing its value five times. The principle which 
built his success at this time will surprise most business 
men. It was: "Give the other fellow a chance to make 
something too." In testing this thesis, he worked out 
what was probably one of the first profit-sharing plans, 
which, like his other attempts to humanize business, 
justified itself in dollars and cents. 

It was partly this policy of liberality and partly his 
desire to pave the way for his farewell to business that 
induced him, at the zenith of his success, to take his one- 
time partner back into the firm, and with him two other 
men. 

The Jewelers' Weekly Publishing Company, as it was 
called, with Mr. Rothschild as president, then took over 
The Jewelers' Weekly and the allied publications that he 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 293 

had either started or projected. As long as he remained 
an active member of the firm, success continued to crown 
its undertakings, but after he ceased to have a hand in 
its conduct the splendid publication of which he was so 
proud, languished. 

The failure of his colleagues to continue the work he 
had so successfully carried on almost single-handed, 
throws into strong relief his achievements. He had at- 
tained financial independence in six years — an inde- 
pendence Won at cost to no one else and with incidental 
benefit to many; he had shown that profits and ethical 
principles are not at opposite poles of human endeavor; 
he had proved the feasibility of the profit-sharing plan; 
he had elevated the tone of the jewelry trade; and he had 
set new standards in trade journalism. 

One would ordinarily feel safe in concluding that a 
young man who in six years accomplished so many things 
had not been able to do much else. Yet Alonzo Roths- 
child found opportunity, also, to keep alive his intellectual 
interests, to do literary work, and to take an active part 
in city politics. 

While still in newspaper work he had begun making an 
elaborate card index of his reading in the belief that it 
would be useful in later literary undertakings. This he 
continued to enrich during the years that he was building 
up the Weekly, finding time somehow to do a vast amount 
of general reading. His active literary work comprised a 
very excellent monograph on Nathan Hale which ap- 
peared subsequently in America, a patriotic journal of 
the day. The research requisite for the work was consid- 
erable and it was only by dogged persistence that Mr. 
Rothschild could make any headway. All through his 
chronicle of those busy days one comes across references 
to the Hale manuscript, triumph at having found time 
to progress or chagrin at being delayed. One of these 
passages throws so much light upon his character that it 
is worth quoting. He writes: "The Hale notes hardly 
seem to move. I get so little time for them. I am tempted 



294 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

to discontinue them for the present, but I have never yet 
failed in anything I started to accompHsh and I will not 
begin now. We'll crawl ahead as best we can." 

Despite the conflicting interests that he complains of, 
he still found time to do his part in politics. He was one 
of the founders of the Good Government Movement — 
"Goo-Goos," as they were called — and the youngest 
member of its Executive Council. When the organization 
was forming, a body of naturalized Germans asked to be 
affiliated, proposing to designate their branch as German- 
American. Without any heed to the possible political 
consequences of such a course, Mr. Rothschild argued 
against affiliation with any society that maintained a 
hyphenated character. He said: "There is no such thing 
as a German-American. These men are either American 
or they are not. If their patriotism is equivocal and they 
persist in tying strings to it, we must have nothing to do 
with them." Such an attitude in one whose tenderest 
associations were all in some sense German is strikingly 
indicative of an unbiased, logical mind. 

Mr. Rothschild's activities were not even confined to 
politics, study, and literary work. He was also prominent 
among the younger members of the Society for Ethical 
Culture. He had a way of giving an original turn to a 
discussion or of putting a question in a clearer, more 
spiritual light that attracted Dr. Adler and the latter 
asked him to write a book on the Morals of Trade and to 
become a member of the society's lecture staff. 

Few young men would have been dissatisfied with a 
lot so varied and rich as his, yet this many-sided man 
longed for something different. Neither was this a vague 
dissatisfaction. Ever since he left college he had hoped, 
one day, to make good the deficiencies of his education. 
Somewhere in these days came also the ambition to write 
about Abraham Lincoln. 

One of the marvels of his career is that he should have 
realized his ideals. Other men have tried to do what he 
did and have failed because money, instead of remaining 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 295 

a means to them, became the object. Yet at no time did 
he let the brilliant present loom large enough in his 
mind to shut out the future. At the flood-tide of his suc- 
cess, one finds this passage in his diary: "How I long for 
the day when, free from business cares, I can give my 
whole time and attention to literary work!" Another, 
further on, shows that with increased prosperity he grew 
even more restive. It reads: "Five more months of my 
last money-grubbing year have passed. They were more 
agreeable than I expected them to be. I long for the day 
when some other sound than the chink of the golden 
guinea will charm my ear. It is siren music. . . . Let me 
steer my bark through the high seas of moral and in- 
tellectual progress toward — well, we shall see! How I 
long for the day of my freedom!" 

Finally the day of freedom did come and then my 
father made good his old vow to return to college, enter- 
ing Harvard University as a special student at the age of 
twenty-eight. His year there was one of almost cloister- 
like tranquillity and yet it was marked by achievement. 
In addition to his studies he found opportunity to write 
a series of newspaper articles on the Elective System, 
then being introduced by President Eliot. The latter 
evinced great interest in his work and went far out of his 
way to furnish him with data. 

Shortly after his return to New York from Harvard, 
Mr. Rothschild met Miss Meta Robitscheck, who sub- 
sequently became his wife. She was heartily in sympathy 
with his aspirations and agreed with him that the work he 
planned could be done better away from the distractions 
of the metropolis. Accordingly, they went, immediately 
after their wedding, to Cambridge, wrenching themselves 
away from lifelong associations. This action seemed to 
others even more unjustifiable than my father's pre- 
mature withdrawal from business, but neither he nor his 
partner in the enterprise ever regretted their course. 

The two years at Cambridge were an auspicious begin- 
ning for the intellectual life. There my mother took 



296 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

special courses at Radcliffe until my birth increased her 
responsibilities, and there my father began his study of 
Abraham Lincoln. It was his plan at first to write a set of 
monographs on Lincoln and his Cabinet, but an investi- 
gation of the material revealed possibilities for more 
ambitious work, and gradually the great scheme matured 
of which Lincoln, Master of Men, and this book are 
merely parts, the whole to have been a cycle of books 
treating Lincoln's character from all angles. Having set 
himself this monumental task of reconstructing a person- 
ality, my father decided to find a quiet spot where he 
might settle down to work and where his family could 
grow up. He finally discovered in the village of East 
Foxboro, twenty-two miles south of Boston, a hundred- 
year-old house surrounded by more than one hundred 
acres of land that suited him and my mother, and there 
they moved in the fall of 1897. It was in this place that 
Ruth and Miriam were born and that my father passed 
the last eighteen years of his life in the happy realization 
of the dreams of his youth. 

Though absorbed in his chosen work, he somehow 
found time to foster other interests, just as in the New 
York days. From the very first, he was a guiding voice 
in the town councils. He gained the confidence of the 
people by his absolute straightforwardness and their 
support by his sound judgment. Only once did he con- 
sent to hold office, but he never withheld his assistance, 
serving on many committees and doing all manner of 
valuable work. He might as well have been a town official, 
for usually, when there was constructive work to be done, 
the selectmen came to him for guidance. People seemed 
instinctively to turn to him for assistance. Shortly after 
he moved to East Foxboro, the inhabitants asked him if 
he would be their leader in a legislative fight for inde- 
pendence from Foxboro. For years they had nursed their 
grievances and waited for a Moses to lead them out of 
bondage. They complained, very justly, that they had 
been paying taxes and asking in vain for their share of 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 297 

the appropriations. The streets were in bad condition, 
the schoolhouse falling to decay, and on every hand were 
evidences of a very palpable wrong. Somewhere, some- 
how Mr. Rothschild had got a remarkably sound know- 
ledge of law. He drew up a petition of separation and led 
the fight against the parent town, in the legislature. The 
facts of the case were plainly in favor of the petition, and 
it would have been granted, had not the member from 
Foxboro log-rolled long before the bill came up. Although 
defeated in his effort to make East Foxboro a separate 
town, Mr. Rothschild virtually won a victory, for ever 
since that time the village has enjoyed fair treatment 
from the parent town. 

A number of years later East Foxboro called upon Mr. 
Rothschild to go before the state authorities to procure 
a water district charter. He drew up the charter and saw 
to its enactment, thus saving the district several thousand 
dollars in attorneys' fees. And, what is more, his charter 
embodied such improvements that it has since been the 
model for new water districts in Massachusetts. 

Nor were Mr. Rothschild's public services confined to 
his own community. He was instrumental in procuring 
the passage of a law that compels every town in Massa- 
chusetts to employ the services of a superintendent of 
schools. He was also one of those who tried, with par- 
tial success, to get the State to compel the railroads to 
burn crude oil in their locomotives and thus put an 
end to the forest fires caused by flying coal sparks. 

Save for such public services to his community and to 
the State, my father devoted most of his time to his study 
of Abraham Lincoln, It is true that he was vice-president 
of the Lincoln Fellowship, a director of the Free Religious 
Association, a member of the Anti-Imperialist League, 
of the Massachusetts Peace Society, and of the Massa- 
chusetts Reform Club, but none of these organizations 
claimed much of his time. 

In 1 90 1 he was a delegate to the Anti-Imperialist Con- 
vention at Indianapolis, but barring this and occasional 



298 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

short business or pleasure trips, he spent his time quietly 
at "Brook Farm" educating his family; entertaining his 
friends; farming a little; helping those who turned to him 
for advice from all sides; and carrying on his work. In 
1906 this study bore its first fruit in the volume Lincoln, 
Master of Men. 

His premature death at the age of fifty-three prevented 
him from quite completing Honest Abe. Had he finished 
this book, however, he would merely have taken Lincoln 
a little further in his political career and added to proof 
that already amply sustains his thesis. 

It is given to few to meet death so exquisitely as he 
did, — alone, without suffering, in the presence only of 
Nature. On the morning of September 29, 191 5, after a 
game of tennis with my mother, he went down to the lake 
alone for a plunge. He was missed some hours later, and 
a search discovered him dead in the water — a victim of 
heart failure caused by the icy shock. 

His life was a candle that, burning with an unusually 
generous and beautiful flame, consumed itself before the 
appointed hour. 



One of my father's friends used to say, "The real thing 
never looks the part." Like most epigrams his is too 
inclusive. My father, for example, did most thoroughly 
look the part. Literary admirers who met him in the 
flesh were not disillusioned and those other persons who 
came in casual contact with him rarely hesitated to class 
him as a student, — though beyond that point opinions 
diverged. Some set him down for a physician, others for 
a lawyer, still others as a college professor, and a few of 
the keenest for what he really was, — a man of letters. 
His physical traits, clothes, and manner were — contrary 
to his friend's epigram — true indices to his personality 
and occupation. 

A trifle below the medium stature, my father had a dis- 
tinction of air that many a taller man might have envied. 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 299 

That dignity — courtly at times — was due to a subtle 
blending of distinct characteristics. To say that he owed 
it to his well-built, muscular figure, or to his erect car- 
riage, would be palpably inaccurate. Such a description 
might fit many a substantial bourgeois, whereas Alonzo 
Rothschild, despite his plain tastes, was far more the 
patrician. One would have had to imagine him with 
another head and other hands to consider him bourgeois. 
Such long, white, blue-veined hands belong to the pro- 
verbial gentleman; such delicate skin is an attribute of 
gentle birth ; such a head is seen only on those who do the 
world's thinking. Admirably moulded, it put one in 
mind of a well-built house, — good in its lines and roomy 
inside. The broad, dome-like forehead — exaggerated by 
partial baldness — and the full, gray-brown beard were 
almost unmistakable indications of the scholar. Yet quite 
as distinctly were the silkiness of his black hair, the well- 
set, finely cut features, the sparse eyebrows, and the 
curling nostrils, marks of the aristocrat. But it was the 
kindliness and swift intelligence of his hazel eyes that 
gave his face its mobility of expression. Passions and 
moods played across it as freely as the lights and shadows 
of the sky are reflected on the surface of a summer meadow. 

As his appearance bespoke, my father was physically 
and nervously of delicate fiber. His sense of touch, for 
example, was hypersensitive, and it was amusing, at 
table, to see how gingerly he handled hot plates. He was, 
however, in no sense unmanly and too often suffered 
acutely in silence. In fact he could much better bear suf- 
fering himself than witness it in others. Not infrequently 
when some member of the family was in pain, he became 
similarly afflicted through sheer sympathy. 

Sometimes his constitutional intensity manifested itself 
in quite a different manner. Ordinarily mild-tempered 
and patient, he was capable of a withering wrath. Re- 
lentless, and concentrating in itself all his physical and 
intellectual forces, it could flare up without warning, or 
wait years for an opportune moment, and then sweep upon 



300 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

the chosen enemy like a rain of fire. Crushing as the effect 
of such an outburst was upon its victim, it was hardly less 
disastrous in its physical reaction upon himself. 

Irritability and violence of temper constituted in his 
case the enemy that every man carries within himself. It 
is evident that he recognized his cardinal fault, for he 
kept a little card perched on his inkstand bearing this 
proverb in his own handwriting: "Mensch arger dich 
nicht." 

Usually people so highly organized are difficult to live 
with, but my father was a striking exception. Save for 
such occasional outbursts as have already been alluded 
to, he was of a sunny disposition and most considerate in 
his personal relationships. Those whose duty it was to 
minister to his comfort and physical well-being found 
him easy to please. He was austerely plain in matters of 
dress and neither knew nor cared what he ate. Indeed, 
when mentally absorbed, he forgot his meals, and it is 
said that while he was editing The Jewelers' Weekly he 
ate lunch only if one of his friends came and dragged him 
out. Even had he been more exacting and given freer 
rein to his moods, his personal charm would have been 
sufficient counterbalance. His resonant voice, buoyancy, 
and ready sympathy would alone have made him a pleas- 
ant companion. Then, too, he had an almost magical 
influence over all who came within his range of acquaint- 
ance, stimulating the best that they had in them, and 
bringing it to the surface. 

His interest in humanity was not limited by age or sex. 
He had a great tenderness for children and a power over 
their affections that was but another phase of his diverse 
nature. He made a capital playmate, as his own children 
well remember, and the serious concerns of the grown-up 
world never so shackled him that he could not shake them 
off for a romp, or a song, to invent a new game or to play 
some old favorite. Like many other men who have done 
big things, he never entirely lost a certain boyishness that 
cropped out occasionally in whimsical little pranks. One 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 301 

of these is so superior to the general run of practical jokes 
that it bears narrating. 

It was in The Jewelers' Weekly days. He was returning 
to New York from a trip to Albany and some friends had 
accompanied him to the train. While they were waiting, 
my father accidentally dropped a half-dollar and one of 
the young ladies, picking it up, vowed that she would 
keep it as a remembrance. My father pleaded with mock 
concern that he needed it to complete his fare, but she, 
disbelieving him, clung to it the more firmly. She was 
correct in her assumption that he had plenty of money 
with him, but on the train he decided that the fifty cents 
should earn him some fun and not be a total loss. 

On arriving in New York, he went to his printer and 
had him strike off a mock newspaper clipping which nar- 
rated how a young man, giving his name as Alonzo Roths- 
child, had been ejected from the Chicago Limited because 
he lacked part of the fare; how he maintained that it had 

been stolen from him by a Miss L of Albany, and 

how he was last seen trudging toward New York. 

Not only was the young lady contrite over her playful 
theft, but she was enraged at the newspaper that would 
print such a story about her, and for a long time she 
begged my father to divulge the name so that she might 
bring suit. 

This story well illustrates the exuberant, playful humor 
that brightened his whole life and that made our dinner 
table more famous for puns, jokes, and repartee than for 
good cheer of the other sort. But there is another anec- 
dote of this period which throws more light on his 
character. 

One day a gentleman who knew the family was walking 
through Mount Morris Park, in New York, when he 
noticed a bareheaded young man seated on a park bench 
and absorbed in a book. Approaching along the path he 
was surprised to recognize my father, and on reaching 
the bench he was still more astonished to see that his 
forehead swarmed with mosquitoes. 



302 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

"Did n't expect to see you here, Lon," he sang out. 
My father started at the unexpected sound of the voice 
as if he had been shot, and looked up. "Why, hello, Sid, 
I'm just studying," he said. "It looks more as if you 
were mosquito farming," his friend replied. "Why don't 
you brush them off?" "Oh, I want them there," my 
father answered. "I don't concentrate the way I ought 
to and I'm learning how." 

The discipline must have been effectual, for while 
interruptions annoyed him exceedingly, the mere pres- 
ence of people in the study while he worked never dis- 
turbed him. For years my youngest sister spent her 
mornings on the rug beside his desk, and while she cut 
out paper dolls and crooned to herself, he wrote. 

My father was capable, not only of great concentration, 
but also of unity of purpose. Gifted with a variety of 
talents and innumerable opportunities to exercise them, 
he remained — save for unavoidable digressions — a one- 
job man. He consistently refused tempting offers to 
address audiences, to undertake other literary labors, or 
to go into politics, and always with the same answer, that 
he had a task to do and must not stop until he had fin- 
ished. He could have made himself a prominent figure 
in the public eye, but he found greater satisfaction in 
quietly doing work of permanent value. 

Singleness of purpose and concentration were only two 
of the several qualities that made Alonzo Rothschild a 
man of strength. What had been willful stubbornness in 
his childhood crystallized, later in life, into dogged per- 
sistence. How great a factor it was in his successes may 
be judged from his own words. Once in speaking of his 
past life he said, "I have never really wanted a thing 
without getting it." 

In addition to this driving force he had the gift of 
silence. Not that he was what is known as a man of few 
words, nor that he was loath to express definite opinions, 
but he knew how to keep his own counsels. He rarely 
discussed a plan until its success was assured, and con- 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 303 

cerning his literary work, he was almost secretive. This 
reticence in discussing himself was due somewhat to dis- 
creetness, somewhat to good taste, but largely to his 
doctrine of work and to his constitutional objectivity. 
He believed that the world's interest should focus on the 
work, not on the author. He despised the man whose 
personality was more discussed than his work and seemed 
to have little sympathy for him who made his pen a 
vehicle for expression of self. In this prejudice one can 
read the influence of Addison, and others of the classi- 
cal school, — the masters whom he followed in forming his 
style. 

Almost equal to his admiration for literature that 
definitely "gets somewhere" was his impatience with 
leisurely, descriptive, digressive writing, however charm- 
ing its meanderings might be. The full measure of his 
scorn, however, was reserved for "precious" writers such 
as Walter Pater, whose involved, mannered style and 
somewhat luscious thought were peculiarly offensive to 
one who prized virility, lightness of touch, and lucid 
directness, as he did. 

Between his literary work and his fine business instinct 
there was a connecting bond. He applied to research the 
methods of a highly trained business expert. The results 
can best be described by quoting his own words: " I can," 
he said, "go into my study and at a moment's notice lay 
my hand on the references covering any point in Lincoln's 
life." 

Such a complete mastery of the subject bespeaks a 
laborious thoroughness that one associates with such 
names as Stradivari ; a striving for perfection suggestive 
of the days of hand-made things. With the care of a 
master cabinet-maker choosing his woods, he collected 
facts, subjecting them to the same searching scrutiny to 
which the cabinet-maker subjects the woods in a hunt 
for hidden flaws. Then having tested his materials, he 
put them together — fitting, readjusting, and polishing, 
with all the care of the cabinet-maker — until he had 



304 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

done a work that would stand for all time. He wrote 
with a deliberateness that might seem laughable to those 
unacquainted with the art of authorship, never permit- 
ting a sentence to stand until every word rang true even 
though it were to take hours in the writing. Like Ben 
Jonson he realized that, "Who casts to write a living line 
must sweat." It may seem a trivial matter, but none the 
less it is significant of the spirit in which he worked, that 
the printers who set up Lincoln, Master of Men, found 
the manuscript one of the most faultless that they had 
ever handled. 

The grasp of detail here exemplified, supplemented 
by clearness of judgment, originality, and foresight, .con- 
stituted a rare intellectual fitness. It is not uncommon 
to find a man of constructive ability or one who is a good 
administrator, but the two qualities are rarely found 
together. Where they are associated, one has a man 
equipped for high service. With such an endowment of 
all-round effectiveness, Alonzo Rothschild could have 
attained leadership in any one of many fields of human 
endeavor. 

There were lines, however, along which my father was 
little developed. His tastes in music and art were plain, 
not to say plebeian. Nor was he of a deeply poetic or 
metaphysical cast of mind. The older he grew, the more 
he centered his attention upon international, ethical, and 
social questions, and the less upon abstract metaphysical 
inquiries. A Jew by birth, he early settled down to 
agnosticism, though never quite contentedly. As a young 
man he had been strongly attracted by Theosophy, but 
finding nothing substantial on which to base a belief he 
sadly gave it up and lapsed back into agnosticism. Still 
all through his life Theosophy flitted before his eyes as an 
unattained desire and he often expressed the wish that 
he could accept its beautiful philosophy. That he had a 
strong religious instinct is further testified by his own 
words about sacred music. He writes: "Irreligious as I 
am, sacred music when well played on the organ has a 



ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 305 

powerful influence on me. It makes me feel sometimes 
as if I were inspired — as if I could seize my pen and 
write something worth reading." 

Though too much a man of the world to be a poet in 
the strict meaning of the word, he was one in the larger 
sense of magnificence of conceptions, elevated thoughts, 
and high purposes. 

It is interesting in this connection to consider what 
influence his almost lifelong study of Abraham Lincoln 
may have had on his character. It would seem that in his 
great simplicity, he must have been directly influenced 
by Lincoln. Like him, he considered himself a plain man, 
and he contented himself with a plain man's share of the 
world's luxuries. He rarely rode in a parlor-car and could 
satisfy his hunger as contentedly at a dairy lunch as in a 
hotel dining-room. He cared nothing for the appearance 
of things. 

The last eighteen years of his life he spent in a plain 
old farmhouse. There was nothing about its exterior to 
distinguish it from thousands of other New England 
farmhouses, but once inside, the visitor found himself in 
"a city of books." In other respects he found the house 
as unpretentious inside as it appeared from without. It 
lacked no comforts or conveniences, but there was no 
studied attempt at decoration. It was quite evidently 
the home of a man who valued only the genuine things of 
life. 

And yet, with all its simplicity, that house was a Mecca 
toward which turned many feet. All sorts of people came 
there, knowing that none ever went away without being 
enriched. For one it was new inspiration ; for another the 
solution of some vexing problem, or perhaps a fresh grasp 
on his whole life. They knew that the man who dwelt 
there was never too busy or too weary to help his fellow 
men, and they came like tired children for comfort or for 
help. They knew him to be a man of warm sympathies, 
a brave man, an honest man, and a man strong enough 
to help shoulder their burdens. How many realized as 



3o6 ALONZO ROTHSCHILD 

they sat there, quietly talking with him, smiling with him, 

laughing with him, that this man who seemed so like 

themselves was — in the language of one grateful old 

lady — a "prince of men" in whom were all the elements 

of true greatness. 

John Rothschild. 
Cambruxje, Massachusetts 
April, 1 917. 



A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 



A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 

WITH THE CORRESPONDING ABBREVI- 
ATIONS USED IN THE NOTES 

Archer's Ethical Obligations: Ethical Obligations of the Lawyer. 

By Gleason Leonard Archer. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 

1910. 
Arnold: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Isaac N. Arnold. 

Seventh Edition. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 1896. 
Atkinson : The Boyhood of Lincoln. By Eleanor Atkinson. 

New York: The McClure Company. 1908. 

Banks : The Lincoln Legion. The Story of Its Founder and Fore- 
runners. By Rev. Louis Albert Banks, D.D. Illustrated with 
Drawings by Arthur I. Keller and Photographs. New York: 
The Mershon Company. 1903. 

Barrett, New : Abraham Lincoln and His Presidency. By Joseph 
H. Barrett, LL.D. Illustrated. In Two Volumes. Cincinnati: 
The Robert Clarke Company. 1904. 

Barrett : Life of Abraham Lincoln. Presenting his early history, 
political career, and speeches in and out of Congress. By Joseph 
H. Barrett. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin. 1865. 

Bartl^t: The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln. 
With a Portrait on Steel. To which is added a biographical 
sketch of Hon. Hannibal Hamlin. By D. W. Bartlett. New 
York : H. Dayton, i860. 

Bateman : Abraham Lincoln; an address. By Newton Bateman. 
Galesburg, 111.: Cadmus Club Publications. 1899. 

Binney : The Life of Horace Binney, with selections from his 
letters. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1903. 

Binns : Abraham Lincoln. By Henry Bryan Binns. London: 
J. M.Dent & Co. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1907. 

Boyden : Echoes from Hospital and White House. A Record of 
Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomroy's Experience in War-Times. By 
Anna L. Boyden. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. 1884. 



310 A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 

Brady : Washington and Lincoln. A comparison, a contrast, and 
a consequence. An address delivered on June i8, 1904, at Val- 
ley Forge, Penna. before the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of 
the Revolution: to commemorate the abandonment of the 
camp by the continental army in 1778. By Cyrus Townsend 
Brady. Philadelphia: Sons of the Revolution, Pennsylvania 
Society Publications. 1904. 

Brockett : The Life and Times of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth 
President of the United States. By L. P. Brockett, M.D. 
Philadelphia: Bradley & Co. 1865. 

Brooks : Abraham Lincoln and the Downfall of American Slavery. 
By Noah Brooks. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1896. 

Brougham's Works: Works of Henry Peter Brougham, First 
Baron Brougham and Vaux. Seven volumes. Edinburgh: 
Adam and Charles Black. 1872. 

Browne : The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's life 
and character portrayed by those who knew him. Prepared and 
arranged by Francis F. Browne. St. Louis: William G. Hills-. 
1896. 

Browne's Lincoln and Men : Abraham Lincoln and the Men of 
his Time. By Robert H. Browne, M.D. Two volumes. Cin- 
cinnati: Jennings & Pye. New York: Eaton & Mains. 1901. 

CamphelVs Reports : Reports of cases determined at nisi prius in 

the courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, and on Circuit. 

Four Volumes. By John, Baron Campbell. New York: Riley. 

1810-1816. 
Carpenter : The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln. Six Months at 

the White House. By F. B. Carpenter. New York: Hurd & 

Houghton. 1867. 
Caton : Miscellanies. By John Dean Caton. Boston: Houghton, 

Osgood & Co. 1880. 
Chiniquy : Fifty years in the Church of Rome. By Father 

Chiniquy, the apostle of temperance in Canada. 3d Edition. 

Chicago: Craig & Barlow. 1886. 
Chittenden : Recollections of President Lincoln and his Adminis- 
tration. By L. E. Chittenden, his Register of the Treasury. 

New York: Harper & Bros. 1 89 1. 
Clarke: James Freeman Clarke. Autobiography, Diary, and 

Correspondence. Edited by Edward Everett Hale. Boston and 

New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1891. 



A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 311 

Coffin : Abraham Lincoln. By Charles Carleton Coffin. New 

York: Harper & Bros. 1893. 
Curtis s Lincoln: The True Abraham Lincoln. By William 

Eleroy Curtis. Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Co. 

1904. 

Davidson : A Complete History of Illinois from 1673 to 1873. By 
Alexander Davidson and Bernard Stuve. Springfield: Illinois 
Journal Co. 1874. 

Debates: Political Debates between Abraham Lincoln and 
Stephen A. Douglas, in the Celebrated Campaign of 1858 in 
Illinois. Including the preceding speeches of each at Chicago, 
Springfield, etc. Also the Two Great Speeches of Abraham 
Lincoln in Ohio in 1859. Cleveland: 0. S. Hubbell & Co. 
1895. 

Dodge : Abraham Lincoln, the evolution of his literary style. By 
Daniel Kilham Dodge. Champaign, 111.: University of Illinois. 
1900. 

Douglass: Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Written by 
himself. His early life as a slave, his escape from bondage, and 
his complete history to the present time. With an introduc- 
tion by Mr. George L. Ruffin of Boston. Hartford, Conn.: 
Park Publishing Co. 188 1. 

Edmonds : Facts and Falsehoods concerning the war on the South, 
1861-1865. By George Edmonds. Memphis, Tenn. : Taylor 
& Co. 1904. 

Flower : Edwin McMasters Stanton, the Autocrat of the Rebel- 
lion, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. By Frank Abial 
Flower. Akron, Ohio: The Saalfield Publishing Co. 1905. 

French : Abraham Lincoln, the Liberator. A biographical sketch. 
By Charles Wallace French. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 
1891. 

GaUaher : Best Lincoln Stories, tersely told. By J. E. Gallaher. 
Chicago: James E. Gallaher & Co. 1898. 

Gillespie : Recollections of early Illinois and her noted men. Read 
before the Chicago Historical Society, March 16, 1880. By 
Hon. Joseph Gillespie, Judge of Circuit Court of Madison 
County District. Chicago: Fergus Printing Co. 1880. 



312 A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 

Greeley: Greeley on Lincoln. With Mr. Greeley's Letters to 
Charles A. Dana and a Lady Friend. To which are added 
reminiscences of Horace Greeley. Edited by Joel Benton. 
New York: The Baker & Taylor Co. 1893. 

Gridley : The Story of Abraham Lincoln, or the Journey from the 
Log Cabin to the White House. By Eleanor Gridley, Secretary 
of the Lincoln Log Cabin Association. Copyright, 1902, by 
Eleanor Gridley. 

Gridley s Defense : Lincoln's Defense of DufT x\rmstrong. The 
story of the trial and the celebrated almanac. By J. N. Gridley. 
Reprint from the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society: 
April, 1 910. 

Hamlin : The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin. By his 
grandson, Charles Eugene Hamlin. Cambridge: The Riverside 
Press. 1899. 

Hanaford: Abraham Lincoln: His Life and Public Services. By 
Mrs. P. A. Hanaford. Boston: B. B. Russell & Co. 1865. 

Hapgood : Abraham Lincoln, the Man of the People. By Norman 
Hapgood. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1899. 

Hart's Sketch : A Biographical Sketch of Abraham Lincoln. By 
Charles Henry Hart. Reprinted from the introduction to Bib- 
liographia Lincolniana. Albany: Munsell. 1870. 

Haynie : The Captains and the Kings. Anecdotes and biographi- 
cal notes on contemporary celebrities. By Henry Hay nie. New 
York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. 1904. 

Hern^ion; Abraham Lincoln. The True Story of a Great Life. By 
William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik. With an introduction 
by Horace White. Illustrated. In Two Volumes. New York: 
D. Appleton & Co. 1896. 

Hill: Lincoln, The Lawyer. By Frederick Trevor Hill. New 
York: The Century Company. 1906. 

Hilliard's Memoir : Politics and Pen Pictures at home and abroad. 
By Henry Washington Hilliard. New York: G. P. Putnam's 
Sons. 1892. 

Hitchcock: Nancy Hanks. The Story of Abraham Lincoln's 
Mother. By Caroline Hanks Hitchcock. New York: Double- 
day & McClure Co. 1899. 

Hobson : Footprints of Abraham Lincoln. Presenting Many In- 
teresting Facts, Reminiscences, and Illustrations Never Before 
Published. By J. T. Hobson, D.D., LL.B., author of "The 



A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 313 

Lincoln Year Book." Dayton, Ohio: The Otterbein Press. 

1909. 
Holland: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By J. G. Holland. 

Springfield, Mass.: Gurdon Bill. 1866. 
Howells: Lives and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal 

Hamlin. By VV. D. Howells and John L. Hayes. Columbus, O. : 

Follett, Foster & Co. i860. 

Irelan: The Republic; or A History of the United States of 
America in The Administrations, From the Monarchic Colonial 
Days to the Present Times. By John Robert Irelan, M.D. In 
Eighteen Volumes. Chicago: Fairbanks and Palmer Publish- 
ing Co. 1888. 

Jayne : Abraham Lincoln. Personal Reminiscences of the mar- 
tyred President. An address delivered by William Jayne to the 
Grand Army Hall and Memorial Association, February 12, 
1900. Chicago: The Grand Army Hall and Memorial Assn. 
1908. 

Jemiings : Abraham Lincoln, The Greatest American. By Janet 
Jennings. Dedicated to the plain people of the Nation he 
saved — To the University of Wisconsin that honors his mem- 
ory. Copyright, 1909, by Janet Jennings. Madison, Wis. 

Jones : Lincoln, Stanton, and Grant. Historical Sketches. By 
Major Evan Rowland Jones. London: Frederick W'arne & Co. 
1875. 

Keckley : Behind the Scenes. By Elizabeth Keckley, formerly a 
slave, but more recently modiste, and friend of Mrs. Abraham 
Lincoln. Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the 
White House. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co. 1868. 

Ketcham: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Henry Ketcham. 
New York: A. L. Burt Co. 1901. 

Koerner: Memoirs. Life sketches written at the suggestion of his 
children. By Gustav Philipp Koerner. Edited by Thomas J. 
McCormack. 2 Volumes. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch 
Press. 1909. 

Lamon : The Life of Abraham Lincoln; from his Birth to his In- 
auguration as President. By Ward H. Lamon. Boston: James 
R. Osgood & Co. 1872. 



314 A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 

Lamon's Recollections : Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847- 
65. By Ward Hill Lamon. Edited by Dorothy Lamon. 
Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 1895. 

Lanvood's Humor of Law: Humor of the Law. Forensic anecdotes. 
By Jacob Larwood [pseudonym for L. R. Sadler]. London: 
Chatto & Windus. 1903. 

Leland : Abraham Lincoln and the Abolition of Slavery in the 
United States. By Charles Godfrey Leland. New York: 
Merrill & Baker. 1879. 

Lewis's Great American Laivyers: Great American Lawyers. A 
history of the legal profession in America. . (University Edi- 
tion.) Eight volumes. Edited by William Draper Lewis. 
Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Co. 1907-1909. 

Liber Scriptorum: The First Book of the Authors' Club. Liber 
Scriptorum. New York: Published by the Authors' Club. 

1893- 
Lincoln and Douglas: Abraham Lincoln. A Paper Read before 

The Royal Historical Society, London, June 16, 1881. By Hon. 

Isaac N. Arnold, F.R.H.S. Stephen A. Douglas: An Eulogy 

Delivered before the Chicago University, July 3, 1861. By 

Hon. James W. Sheahan. Chicago: Fergus Printing Co. 

i88i. 
Lincolnics: Familiar Sayings of Abraham Lincoln. Collected and 

Edited by Henry Llewellyn Williams. New York and London: 

G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1906. 
Ludlow: President Lincoln, Sel f- Pour tray ed. By John Malcolm 

Ludlow. Published for the benefit of the British Foreign Freed- 

men's Aid Society. London: Alfred W. Bennett; Alexander 

Strahan ; Hamilton, Adams & Co. 1 866. 

McCulloch : Men and Measures of Half a Century. Sketches and 
Comments, By Hugh McCulloch. New York: Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 1889. 

MacChesney : Abraham Lincoln. The Tribute of a Century, 
1809-1909. Commemorative of the Lincoln Centenary and con- 
taining the principal speeches made in connection therewith. 
Edited by Nathan William MacChesney. Chicago: A. C 
McClurg & Co. 1910. 

McClure's Stories: Abraham Lincoln's Stories and Speeches. 
Edited by J. B. McClure, A.M. Chicago: Rhodes & McClure 
Publishing Co. 1899, 



A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 315 

McClure's Yarns: "Abe" Lincoln's Yarns and Stories. A com- 
plete collection of the funny and witty anecdotes that made 
Lincoln famous as America's Greatest Story Teller. With in- 
troduction and anecdotes by Colonel Alexander K. McClure of 
the Philadelphia Times, a personal friend and adviser of the 
Story-Telling President. The Story of Lincoln's Life told by 
himself in his stories. Wit and Humor of the War, the Courts, 
the Backwoods, and the White House. Copyright by Henry 
Neil, 1901. 

Magruder's Marshall : John Marshall. By Allan B. Magruder. 
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1899. 

Markens : President Lincoln and the Jews. By Isaac Markens. 
New York: Printed for the Author. 1909. 

Master : Lincoln, Master of Men. A Study in Character. By 
Alonzo Rothschild. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin 
Company. 1906. 

Merrick's Narrative: Old Times on the Upper Mississippi. The 
Recollections of a Steam-Boat Pilot from 1854 to 1863. By 
George Byron Merrick. Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark 
Co. 1909. 

Morgan : Abraham Lincoln, The Boy and the Man. By James 
Morgan. New York : The Macmillan Company. 1908. 

Morgan's Henry : The True Patrick Henry. By George Morgan. 
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1907. 

Morse : Abraham Lincoln. By John T. Morse, Jr. Two volumes. 
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1896. 

Newton : Lincoln and Herndon. By Joseph Fort Newton. Cedar 
Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press. 1910. 

Nicolay : A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln. Condensed from 
Nicolay and Hay's Abraham Lincoln. By John G. Nicolay. 
New York: The Century Company. 1904. 

Nicolay' s Boys' Life : The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln. By 
Helen Nicolay. New York: The Century Company. 1906. 

Nicolay Sf Hay : Abraham Lincoln, A History. By John G. Nico- 
lay and John Hay. Ten Volumes. New York: The Century 
Company. 1890. 

Oldroyd: The Lincoln Memorial. Album-Immortelles. Original 
Life Pictures, with autographs, from the hands and hearts of 
eminent Americans and Europeans, contemporaries of the great 
martyr to liberty, Abraham Lincoln. Together with extracts 



3i6 A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 

from his speeches, letters, and sayings. Collected and edited 
by Osborn H. Oldroyd. With an introduction by Matthew 
Simpson, D.D., LL.D., and a sketch of the patriot's life by 
Hon. Isaac N. Arnold. Chicago: Gem Publishing House. 
1883. 
Onstot : Pioneers of Menard and Mason Counties. Made up of 
personal reminiscences of an early life in Menard Couiity, 
which we gathered in a Salem life from 1830 to 1840, and a 
Petersburg life from 1840 to 1850, including personal reminis- 
cences of Abraham Lincoln and Peter Cartright. By T. G. 
Onstot. Forest City, Illinois: T. G. Onstot. 1902. 

Parkinson's Tour in America: A tour in America, in 1798, 1799, 
and 1800. Exhibiting sketches of society and manners, and a 
particular account of the American system of agriculture. By 
Richard Parkinson. London: J. Harding. 1805. 

Paul : Massachusetts' practice with reference to proceedings be- 
fore masters and auditors, and their reports. Boston: Little, 
Brown & Co. 1909. 

Phillips's, Men who knew : Abraham Lincoln, by some men who 
knew him. Being personal recollections of Judge Owen T. 
Reeves, Hon. Jas. S. Ewing, Col. Richard P. Morgan, Judge 
Franklin Blades, John W. Bunn. With introduction by Hon. 
Isaac N. Phillips. Bloomington, 111.: Pantagraph Printing and 
Stationery Co. 1910. 

Pratt : Lincoln in Story. The Life of the Martyr-President told 
in Authenticated Anecdotes. Edited by Silas G. Pratt. Illus- 
trated. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1901. 

Ram: A treatise on facts as subjects of inquiry by a jury. 
Fourth American Edition. Edited by John Townshend, and 
additional notes by Charles F. Beach, Jr. Also appendix. 
New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co. 1890. 

Raymond : The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln, Six- 
teenth President of the United States, together with his State 
Papers. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes 
and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln. By Frank B. 
Carpenter. New York: Derby & Miller. 1865. 

Rice : Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln. By distinguished men 
of his time. Collected and edited by Allen Thorndike Rice. 
New York: The North American Review. 1888. 



A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 317 

Salkeld's Reports: Reports in French and English, containing 
cases heard and determined in the court of King's Bench, dur- 
ing the time that Sir Robert Foster, Sir Robert Hyde, and Sir 
John Kelyng were chief Justices there, as also of certain cases 
in other courts at Westminster during that time. 2d Edition. 
Two Volumes. Translated into English by Mr. Serjeant 
Salkeld and others. London: Browne. 1722. 

5<;AMrs; The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz. Three Volumes. New 
York: The McClure Company. 1907-1908. 

Schurz's Essay : Abraham Lincoln. An Essay. By Carl Schurz. 
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1892. 

Scripps : Tribune Tracts No. 6. Life of Abraham Lincoln. En- 
tered according to act of Congress in the year i860 by Horace 
Greeley and Company in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Court of the United States for the Southern District of New 
York. 

Selhy : Stories and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln. Including 
stories of Lincoln's early life, stories of Lincoln as a lawyer, 
Presidential incidents, stories of the war, etc., etc. Lincoln's 
Letters and Great Speeches Chronologically arranged; with 
Biographical Sketch by Paul Selby (Associate Editor of the 
Encyclopedia of Illinois). Fully Illustrated. Chicago: Thomp- 
son & Thomas. 1900. 

Sheppard: Great Americans of History: Abraham Lincoln. A 
Character Sketch. By Robert Dickinson Sheppard, D.D. 
With supplementary essay, by G. Mercer Adam. Together 
with Anecdotes, Characteristics, and Chronology. Milwaukee: 
H. G. Campbell Publishing Co. 1903. 

Speed: Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln and Notes of a Visit 
to California. Two Lectures by Joshua F. Speed. With a sketch 
of his Life. Louisville: John P. Morton & Co. 1884. 

Stephens: Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens. His Diary, 
kept when a prisoner at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, 1865; 
giving incidents and reflections on his prison life and some 
letters and reminiscences. Edited, with a biographical study, 
by Myrta Lockett Avary. New York : Doubleday , Page & Co. 
1910. 

Stevens's Black Hawk: The Black Hawk War, including a review 
of Black Hawk's life. Chicago: Stevens. 1903. 

Stoddard : Abraham Lincoln. The True Story of a Great Life. By 
William O. Stoddard, one of President Lincoln's Private 



3i8 A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 

Secretaries during the War of the Rebellion. New York: 
Fords, Howard & Hulbert. 1896. 

Stovall : Robert Toombs. Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage. 
By Pleasant A. Stovall. New York: Cassell Publishing Co. 
1892. 

Stowe : Men of Our Times, or Leading Patriots of the Day. Being 
a narrative of the lives and deeds of Statesmen, Generals, and 
Orators. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Hi\rtford : Hartford Pub- 
lishing Co. 1868. 

Sumner : The Promises of the Declaration of Independence. Eu- 
logy on Abraham Lincoln, delivered by Charles Sumner before 
the municipal authorities of the City of Boston, June I, 1865. 
Boston: Farwell & Co., Printers to the City. 1865. 

Tarbell's Early Life : The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln. Con- 
taining many unpublished documents and unpublished remi- 
niscences of Lincoln's early friends. By Ida M. Tarbell, 
assisted by J. McCan Davis. New York: S. S. McClure. 
1896. 

Tarbell: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Drawn from original 
sources and containing many speeches, letters, and telegrams 
hitherto unpublished. Two Volumes. By Ida M. Tarbell. 
New York: The Doubleday & McClure Co. 1900. 

Thayer: The Pioneer Boy and How He Became President. By 
William M. Thayer. Boston: Walker, Wise & Company. 
1864. 

Trevelyan's Fox : The Early History of Charles James Fox. By 
Sir George Otto Trevelyan. New York: Harper & Bros. 1880. 

Ward : Abraham Lincoln. Tributes from his associates. Reminis- 
cences of soldiers, statesmen, and citizens. With introduction 
by The Rev. William Hayes Ward, D.D. New York: Thomas 
Y. Crowell & Co. 1895. 

Whipple : The Story-Life of Lincoln. A Biography composed of 
Five Hundred True Stories, told by Abraham Lincoln and his 
friends, selected from all authentic sources, and fitted together 
in order, forming His Complete Life History. By Wayne 
Whipple. Memorial Edition. Issued to commemorate the 
looth Anniversary of Lincoln's Birth. Copyright, 1908, by 
Wayne Whipple. 

White : Abraham Lincoln in 1854. An address delivered before the 



A LIST OF BOOKS CITED 319 

Illinois State Historical Society. By Horace White. January 
30, 1908. Illinois State Historical Society Publication. 

White, Money and Banking : Money and Banking, illustrated by 
American history. By Horace White. Boston: Ginn & Co. 
1896. 

Whitney: Life on the Circuit with Lincoln. With Sketches of 
Generals Grant, Sherman, and McClellan, Judge Davis, 
Leonard Swett, and other contemporaries. By Henry C. 
Whitney. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1892. 

Whitney's Life : Life of Lincoln. By Henry C. Whitney. Edited 
by Marion Mills Miller, Litt.D. Two Volumes: Vol. I., Lin- 
coln, The Citizen; Vol. II., Lincoln, The President. New 
York: The Baker & Taylor Company. 1908. 

Williams: The Burden Bearer, an Epic of Lincoln. By Francis 
Williams. Philadelphia : Jacobs & Co. 1908. 

Wilson's Washington : George Washington. By Woodrow Wilson. 
Illustrated by Howard Pyle. New York: Harper & Bros. 1905. 

Works : Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln. Edited by John 
G. Nicolay and John Hay. With a General Introduction by 
Richard Watson Gilder, and Special Articles by Other Emi- 
nent Persons. New and Enlarged Edition. Twelve Volumes. 
New York: Francis D. Tandy Company. 1905. 



NOTES 



NOTES 

The author would have wished to acknowledge 
his indebtedness to the many admirers of Abraham 
Lincoln who so cheerfully and readily replied to his 
inquiries. The responsiveness of all to whom he 
applied for information and particularly the eager- 
ness with which collectors entrusted precious pam- 
phlets and scrap-books to him were a constant source 
of gratification and encouragement. 

In the following notes there are frequent references 
to secondary authorities. They are given, not to 
authenticate what has been said on direct authority, 
but for the convenience of readers and the service 
of students. The reader may find one book more 
available than another; and the student, who may 
wish to collate all that has been published on a sub- 
ject, will have at hand an adequate bibliography. 

CHAPTER I 

1. Henry Pirtle, quoted in Herndon, i, 7. See, also, W. F. 
Booker, in Barrett (New), i, 6; Irelan, xvi, 21. 

2. George B. Balch in Browne, 87; Samuel Haycraft in Bar- 
rett (New), i, 8; Rev. Thomas Goodwin, ibid., 115. 

3. Atkinson, 44-45. 

4. Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married near 
Beechland, in Washington County, Kentucky, on the 12th 
of June, 1806. 

5. Usher F. Linder, who was born in Hardin County, Ken- 
tucky, became a prominent Democratic leader in Illinois. 
Delivering a eulogy of Lincoln in 1 865 and speaking from his 
recollections of the old Kentucky days, he said : " They were 



324 NOTES 

a good family. They were poor, and the very poorest peo- 
ple, I might say, of the middle classes, but they were true." 

6. Sarah Lincoln was born February lo, 1807. The removal 
to Nolin Creek is said to have occurred in the following 
year. 

7. Speed, 30; Browne, 489; Barrett (New), ii, 122-23; 
Morgan, 255-56. 

8. The reader who wishes to follow Thomas Lincoln in his 
migrations is referred for some of the fuller accounts to: 
Lamon, 12-15, 19-22, 25-26, 73-75; Herndon, i, 15-18, 
57-61 ; Holland, 24-26, 38-41; Brockett, 37-40, 51-54. 57; 
Barrett, 21-24, 30-34; Barrett (New), i, 9-10, 12-14, 25- 
26; Brooks, 6, 8-13, 44-45; Browne, 42, 45-51, 80-85; 
Tarbell's Early Life, 40, 51-55, 94-101; Tarbell, i, 13-15, 
18-19, 45-49. 59; Nicolay and Hay, i, 24-30, 45-47; Whit- 
ney's Life, i, 21-28, 57-64; Stoddard, 10-18, 57-59; Cofifin, 
18-29, 46-49; Irelan, xvi, 34-40, 64-65; Curtis's Lincoln, 
19-22, 26, 30; Works, vi, 26-31. 

9. Gridley, 47-48. For the story of a previous speculation, of 
a similar nature, that resulted disastrously, see Dr. C. C. 
Graham in Tarbell's Early Life, 233; also, Hitchcock, 93- 
97, and Gridley, 47. The loss of the cargo by an accident 
to the vessel, however, as told by Dr. Graham, bears a 
striking, perhaps suspicious resemblance to what befell 
Thomas Lincoln (note 8) when he tried to move his be- 
longings by water from Kentucky to Indiana. 

10. Nancy Hanks Lincoln died at Little Pigeon Creek, In- 
diana, on October 5, 181 8, in her thirty-fifth year. 

11. Holland, 23; Arnold in Oldroyd, 33; Barrett (New), i, 16; 
Browne, 43-44; Cofifin, 28; Ketcham, 12; Hart's Sketch, 5; 
L. S. Portor, in the Woman's Home Companion, February 
1909, pp. 10, 64; see, also. Speed, 19. Attention is called 
to the slight variations in the language as reported by these 
several writers. 

12. In the Little Pigeon Creek cabin were Abraham, his sister 
Sarah, and cousin Dennis Hanks, sometimes called Dennis 
Friend, whom luckless chance had made a member of the 
Lincoln family. The Johnston children comprised John 
D., Sarah, and Matilda. 

13. Thomas Lincoln and Sarah Bush Johnston were married 
on December 2, 1819. The episode of the debts is related 



NOTES 325 

in Barrett (New), i, 17; Herndon, i, 26; Lamon, 29; Coffin, 
31; McClure's Stones, 272-74; Tarbell's Early Life, 52. 

14. But see charges or surmises that Thomas Lincoln, in his 
anxiety to win Mrs. Johnston, had misrepresented condi- 
tions at home: Lamon, 11, 30-31; also Herndon, i, 27; 
Brooks, 28; French, 28; Leland, 18; Irelan, xvi, 44; Hap- 
good, 9; Stoddard, 21-22, 24; Sheppard, 118. These latter 
writers, following the lead of Lamon, have done so, appar- 
ently, to explain what needs no historical explanation — 
an improvident marriage; and Lamon quotes neither chap- 
ter nor verse for the faith, or, more accurately speaking, the 
lack of faith, that is in him. On the other hand, Cousin 
Dennis Hanks, though not always a trustworthy witness, 
offers what look like sufficient reasons for the lady's course. 
" Tom," he says, " had a kind o' way with the women, an' 
maybe it was somethin' she tuk comfort in to have a man 
that did n't drink an' cuss none." (Atkinson, 21.) 

15. Irelan, xvi, 26-27, 4il Lamon, 32; Leland, 20; Jones, 4; 
Hapgood, 8; Janes, 7; E. L Lewis in St. Louis Globe-Demo- 
crat, February 12, 1899. 

16. Brooks, 28; Short Autobiography, in Works, vi, 27. 

17. Danville (111.) News, February 12, 1904. 

18. Probably Webster's American Spelling Book, Dilworth's 
Spelling Book, Pike's Arithmetic, Murray's English Reader, 
Scott's Lessons in Elocution, and the Kentucky Preceptor. 
Lincoln studied Kirkham's Grammar after he left home. 
See Dodge, 4-6; Sumner, ix, 375; Scripps, 3; Herndon, i, 
34, 44-45, note, 75-76; Lamon, 37, note, 50; Hitchcock, 
87; Atkinson, 18; Leland, 22; Browne, 70, 96; Brooks, 54; 
Morse, i, 19; Holland, 46; Tarbell's Early Life, 124-25, 
132; Tarbell, i, 66-67; Nicolay and Hay, i, 84; Nicolay, 
25-26; Nicolay 's Boy's Life, 36-37; Ketcham, 66; Howells, 
29-30; Irelan, xvi, 96-97; Stoddard, 70; Browne's Lincoln 
and Men, i, 158-59; Jones, 8. 

19. Scripps, 3; Speed, 38; Herndon, i, 36; Lamon, 37, 57 note; 
Tarbell, i, 29-34; Binns, 18-19; Atkinson, 23-27; Selby, 
45; Stowe, 15; Nicolay and Hay, i, 35; Oldroyd, 33-34; 
McClure's Stories, 22-23; Schurz's Essay, 4-5; Chittenden, 
433-34; Nicolay, 14; Nicolay's Boy's Life, 23; Morse, i, 13; 
Swett's Reminiscences, in Rice, 459; Raymond, 22; Hob- 
son, 30-31; Barrett (New), i, 23-24; Arnold, 21; Brooks, 



326 



NOTES 



23-24, 29-30; Browne, 66-68; Holland, 31 ; Morgan, 19-21 ; 
Whitney's Life, i, 41-42; Tarbell's Early Life, 69-71; 
French, 24-25; Hitchcock, 87-88; Leland, 22; Stoddard, 
32-33, 36-37, 43; Sumner, ix, 375; Curtis's Lincoln, 56- 
58; Beach, 8-9; H. W. Mabie, in the Chautatiquan, April, 
1900, pp. 33-34, and in the Outlook, February 20, 1904, pp. 
454-55. See also infra, p. 33i- _ 

20. According to most of our authorities this was the book by 
Mason L. VVeems, entitled Th£ Life of George Washington; 
with curious anecdotes, equally honourable to himself and 
exemplary to his young countrymen. But Scripps (3), Ray- 
mond (21-22), Brockett (47), and Holland (32) are appar- 
ently accurate in stating that the work was Dr. David 
Ramsay's The Life of Washington. It should be remem- 
bered that Mr. Lincoln himself, looking with uncommon 
care through the advance sheets of Scripps's biography, 
published in i860, made no correction as to the name 
Ramsay there employed in connection with the anecdote. 
Lincoln's reference to Weems's Life, moreover, in the 
speech at Trenton {Works, vi, 150-51), indicates that he 
had read that book during his early childhood — some 
years before he could as a "tall and long-armed" youth 
have "made a clean sweep" of Crawford's fodder-corn. 

21. Herndon, i, 52, note. 

22. For the fuller accounts of this episode see: Whitney's Life, 
i, 42-43; Arnold, 23; Raymond, 21-22; Lamon, 38, 50-51, 
55, 66, note; Scripps, 3; Holland, 31-32; Brockett, 47-48; 
Herndon, i, 37, 52, note; Stoddard, 37-38; French, 26; 
Irelan, xvi, 55-56; Brooks, 24-25; Barrett, 25-26; Browne, 
67, 69-70; Bartlett, 1 16-17. A somewhat fanciful narra- 
tive may be read in Thayer, 120-30, 177. 

23. Herndon, i, 29-31; Pratt, 11-12; Hapgood, 18-19. An in- 
stance of truth-telling by Lincoln, regardless of impending 
punishment, quite after the Weems manner, is related by 
Thayer (iio-ii), in his story about the broken buck's horn. 

24. Lamon, 71. 

25. How serious these abuses ultimately became may be in- 
ferred from Merrick's narrative (174-80), and from what 
Horace White says on the subject, in Money and Banking, 
PP- 351-52: — 

" The bewildering state of the paper currency before the 



NOTES 327 

Civil War may be learned from the numerous bank-note re- 
porters and counterfeit detectors of the period. It was the 
aim of these publications to give early information to en- 
able the public to avoid spurious and worthless notes in 
circulation. These were of various kinds: (i) ordinary coun- 
terfeits; (2) genuine notes altered from lower denomina- 
tions to higher ones; (3) genuine notes of failed banks al- 
tered to the names of solvent banks; (4) genuine notes of 
solvent banks with forged signatures; (5) spurious notes, 
such as those of banks that had no existence; (6) spurious 
notes of good banks, as 20's of a bank that never issued 
2o's; (7) notes of old, closed banks still in circulation. 

" The number of counterfeit and spurious notes was 
quite appalling, and disputes between payer and payee as 
to the goodness of notes were of frequent occurrence, 
ranging over the whole gamut of doubts, — as to whether 
the issuing bank was sound or unsound, whether the note 
was genuine or counterfeit, and, if sound and genuine, 
whether the discount was within reasonable limits." 

26. For a severe, though manifestly biased comment on the 
bad money episode, so far as it concerned Lincoln, see 
Edmonds, 47-48. 

27. Wilson's Washington, 11-12. 

28. Hill, 219-20. 

29. New Salem, Illinois, when Lincoln took up his residence 
there in the summer of 1 831, was a busy little village of 
recent origin, near the west bank of the Sangamon River, 
in the county of that name. Its site — for the place has 
long since fallen into decay — is within the present limits 
of Menard County, about twenty miles northwest of 
Springfield. 

30. The anecdote is from Parkinson's Tour in America, ii, 436- 
37 (London, 1805). Whether or not it had come under 
Lincoln's notice we have no means of knowing. 

31. William McNeely, in Oldroyd, 393-94; Browne, 104. 

32. John Rowan Herndon, in Herndon, i, 98. 

33. William G. Greene, in Browne, 1 16-17; ^^^ •" Onstot, 81- 
83. A more circumstantial account, based on correspond- 
ence with Greene, may be found in Coffin, 73-76. See, also, 
Nicolay and Hay, i, lio-ii; Herndon, i, 98-99; Lamon, 
136-37; Tarbell, i, 92; Tarbell's Early Life, 160; Holland, 
54; Brooks, 66. 



328 



NOTES 



34. Lincoln's experience with Berry reminds one of Benjamin 
Franklin's trials with his partner Hugh Meredith, who was 
" often seen drunk in the streets, and playing at low games 
in the ale houses." It is an interesting coincidence, more- 
over, that both Franklin and Lincoln were aided, at these 
critical junctures, by generous friends. 

35. Dennis Hanks, in Atkinson, 50. 

36. Leonard Swett, in Rice, 465-66. 

37. At about the time Abraham Lincoln thus spoke to his 
creditors in Illinois, a young man in far-away Maine 
named Hannibal Hamlin, destined to share his electoral 
honors, used somewhat similar language under correspond- 
ing circumstances. He had gone on the bond of a certain 
deputy sheriff for four thousand dollars. That officer be- 
came a defaulter, and the people who had claims against 
him looked to his bondsmen. Hamlin, having called the 
creditors together, said: " My friends, I have lived among 
you only a few years, but I think you know that I keep my 
word. I am poor, young, and struggling for an honest sup- 
port for myself. This struggle will continue right among you, 
my neighbors. I am unable now to meet this just debt; 
but if you will give me time, and God will give me strength, 
I will pay off every dollar I owe you, even if it takes me a 
lifetime to do it." 

He redeemed his promise to the last cent; but at what 
cost may be inferred from his exclamation, many years 
later, in telling the story: " Heavens! how long it kept my 
nose on the grindstone." 

A fuller narrative of the incident may be found in Hamlin, 
46. For another somewhat similar episode, in the early life 
of Andrew Jackson, the reader is referred to Brady, 56-57. 

38. A patron of Samuel Hill's store, Harvey Ross who carried 
the mails, once told how he, as well as others, was impressed 
by Lincoln's straightforward methods. His narrativ'e 
which belongs perhaps to this period may be found in 
Onstot, 76-77. 

" Mr. Lincoln," said Ross, "was very attentive to busi- 
ness; was kind and obliging to the customers, and they had 
so much confidence in his honesty that they preferred to 
trade with him rather than Hill. This was true of the ladies 
who said he was honest and would tell the truth about the 



NOTES 329 

goods. I went into the store one day to buy a pair of buck- 
skin gloves, and asked him if he had a pair that would fit 
me. He threw down a pair on the counter: 'There is a 
pair of dogskin gloves that I think will fit you, and you can 
have them for seventy-five cents.' When he called them 
dogskin I was surprised, as I had never heard of such a 
thing before. At that time no factory gloves had been 
brought into the county. All the gloves and mittens then 
worn were made by hand, and by the women of the neigh- 
borhood from tanned deerskins, and the Indians did the 
tanning. A large buckskin could be bought for fifty to sev- 
enty-live cents. So I said to Lincoln: 'How do you know 
they are dogskin?' 'Well,' he said, 'I'll tell you how I 
know they are dogskin. Jack Clary's dog killed Tom 
Watkins's sheep, and Tom Watkins's boy killed the dog, old 
John Mounts tanned the dogskin, and Sally Spears made 
the gloves, and that is the way I know they are dogskin 
gloves.' So I asked no more, but paid six bits, took the 
gloves, and can truly say that I have worn buckskin and 
dogskin gloves for sixty years and never found a pair that 
did me such service as the pair I got from Lincoln." 

39. Lincoln to George Spears, Works, i, 11. A facsimile of the 
letter is reproduced from the Menard-Salem-Lincoln Sou- 
venir Album, in Tarbell, i, 97. 

40. Tarbell's Early Life, 190, note. 

41. This kind act is attributed to James Short and one of the 
Greenes, — whether Bowling or William G. appears to be 
indoubt. See Lamon, 138-39, 149-50; Arnold, 41-42; Hern- 
don, i, 1 14-15; Leland, 43-44; Barrett (New), i, 40; Morse, 
i, 42; Curtis's Lincoln, 33-34; Stoddard, 88-89; Irelan, 
xvi, 109; Tarbell, i, 105-06; Tarbell's Early Life, 188-90. 

42. William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, relates (Hern- 
don, i, 100): " He was a long time meeting these claims, 
even as late as 1848 sending to me from Washington por- 
tions of his salary as Congressman to be applied on the un- 
paid remnant of the Berry and Lincoln indebtedness. But 
in time he extinguished it all, even to the last penny." 

According to Nicolay (36): " It was not until his return 
from Congress, seventeen years after the purchase of the 
store, that he finally relieved himself of the last installment 
of his 'national debt.'" 



330 NOTES 

43. Several decades thereafter, when reference was made in 
President Lincoln's hearing to the large tracts of valuable 
land acquired by Surveyor-General Edward F. Beale, in 
California, the Executive may be said to have suffered no 
twinges of conscience if he remarked, as was reported: 
" Yes, they say Beale is monarch of all he surveyed." 

44. Henry McHenry, in Herndon, i, 113. 

45. The Grigsby affair. (Master, 16-17.) 

46. Frank E. Stevens, in Magazine of History, February, 1905, 
pp. 86-90. 

47. William G. Greene, who was present, so quotes Lincoln; 
but Lamon (iii) and Stevens {Black Hawk, 283) report 
him to have said: " Boys, the man actually threw me once 
fair, broadly so; and the second time, this very fall, he 
threw me fairly, though not so apparently so." 

48. Magazine of History, February, 1905, pp. 86-90. See also 
Stevens's Black Hawk, 281-83; Oldroyd, 516-17; Browne, 
1 12-13; Lamon, 109-12; Herndon, i, 87-88; Nicolay and 
Hay, i, 94; Thayer, 239-40; Lincoln and Douglas, 194a- 
194&; Master, 39-40. 

49. The whole experience left a deep impression in Lincoln's 
mind. After his first nomination to the Presidency, he re- 
ceived one day a delegation of college men, among whom 
was Professor Risdon M. Moore, the son of Jonathan, that 
quondam referee. 

"Which of the Moore families do you belong to?" in- 
quired the candidate, with a twinkle of the eye. " I have a 
grudge against one of them." 

To which the Professor, with a still merrier twinkle, re- 
plied: "I suppose it is my family you have the grudge 
against; but we are going to elect you President, and call 
it even." 

Thereupon Mr. Lincoln, narrating to those who were 
present the story of his defeat by Thompson, concluded 
with the words: " I never had been thrown in a wrestling- 
match until the man from that company did it. He could 
have thrown a grizzly bear." 

Nor did the reminiscences concerning that memorable 
encounter cease there. Discussing former days with old 
friends who visited him at the White House, President 
Lincoln several times referred to the occurrence. One of 



NOTES 331 

these interviews is thus related by Mr. Greene: "During 
the rebellion, in 1864, I had occasion to see Mr. Lincoln in 
his office at Washington, and, after having recalled many 
of our early recollections, he said, ' Bill, whatever became 
of our old antagonist, Thompson, — that big curly-headed 
fellow who threw me at Rock Island? ' I replied I did not 
know, and wondered why he asked. He playfully remarked 
that if he knew where he was living, he would give him a 
post-office, by way of showing him that he bore him no ill- 
will." 

50. Henry McHenry, in Lamon, 154; Browne, 104. 

51. Confidence in Lincoln as an arbitrator continued through 
his later career. This is evinced by the following telegram, 
quoted by Hill (250) from the OrendorfT collection: — 

To Abraham Lincoln, Chicago, Oct. 14, 1853. 

Springfield, 111. 
Can you come here immediately and act as arbitrator in 
the crossing case between the Illinois Central and Northern 
Indiana R.R. Companies if you should be appointed? An- 
swer and say yes if possible. .^. ,, t t- t 

(Signed) J. F. Joy. 

52. Address on Benjamin Ferguson, delivered at a meeting 
of the Washington Temperance Society on February 8, 
1842. 

53. Lincoln read this book during a series of visits that he made 
for the purpose to the home of David Turnham, a con- 
stable, who owned the volume. It was entitled: "'The 
Revised Laws of Indiana, adopted and enacted by the 
General Assembly at their eighth session. To which are pre- 
fixed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of 
the United States, and the Constitution of the State of 
Indiana, and sundry other documents connected with the 
Political History of the Territory and State of Indiana. Ar- 
ranged and published by authority of the General As- 
sembly. Corydon: Printed by Carpenter and Douglass. 
1824." 

54. Herndon, i, 52; Tarbell's Early Life, 72. 

55. Alban Jasper Conant, in Liber Scriptorum, IJ2; and in 
McClure's Magazine, March, 1909, p. 514. That Lincoln's 



332 NOTES 

picture of close application was not overdrawn may be in- 
ferred from this paragraph in Lamon (140), based on the 
recollections of an old settler: " ' He used to read law,' says 
Henry McHenry, 'in 1832 or 1833, barefooted, seated in 
the shade of a tree, and would grind around with the shade, 
just opposite Berry's grocery store, a few feet south of the 
door.' He occasionally varied the attitude by lying flat on 
his back, and ' putting his feet up the tree,' — a situation 
which might have been unfavorable to mental application 
in the case of a man with shorter extremities." See, also: 
Nicolay and Hay, i, 1 12-13; Hemdon, i, 101-02; Browne, 
121-23. 

56. Report of an interview by Albert B. Orr, with C. F.~War- 
den, in the McKeesport (Pa.) Times, February 12, 1909; 
also a letter from Mr. Orr to the author. 

57. In response to the writer's inquiries Henry B. Rankin of 
Springfield, Illinois, at one time a clerk in Lincoln and 
Herndon's office, furnished a statement that is of topo- 
graphical interest. The communication was addressed to 
the Hon. James R. B. Van Cleave of that city, through 
whose courtesy it is here published : 

" The route Mr. Lincoln went over, in and out of Spring- 
field from Salem when he made his home in that village was 
entirely on the south side of the Sangamon river, not the 
north as the travel from that vicinity has been for the past 
fifty years. There was no bridge over the Sangamon river 
in its entire length while Mr. Lincoln was at Salem. The 
first bridge over this river was built in the early '40s at 
the then Carpenter's Mills in this county. The next at 
Petersburg a few years later, in the '40s, and v-ia Athens in 

1843. 

" Mr. Lincoln's trips to Springfield were usually made by 
the road as now located, for the first few miles bearing south 
out from Salem, — from that on into the city there have 
been more or less minor changes since, at various places, — 
on to the junction with the present 'Jacksonville and 
Springfield road,' and via it, entered the city on the west. 
Quite occasionally he walked from Salem to Springfield, 
and these trips were 'across country,' skirting the bluffs 
and breaks on the south bank of the Sangamon river ' as 
the crow flies,' — by shortest angles, some five miles shorter 
trip in. 



NOTES 333 

" I have heard Mr. Lincoln in the old Lincoln and Hern- 
don law office refer to these trips on foot into the city across 
the then unfenced prairie and woods. So many writers 
about Mr. Lincoln's early years have traveled over the 
road from Springfield to Petersburg vi<i Athens, — now the 
nearest and always chosen one, — that you will please par- 
don me for the stress I place on the difference between the 
two roads. The road south of Salem across the ' Rocky 
ford' of 'Rock Creek,' and several other streams, — then 
called ' creeks,' had to bear westerly after leaving the San- 
gamon bottoms south of Salem, and cross these creeks at 
the most favorable places between banks best fitted to 
span crude bridges over. This made the 'foot-path way' 
from Springfield to Salem, a much shorter one than the 
wagon road between them. This wagon road as then trav- 
eled was fully twenty-five miles between Salem and the 
Capital City." 

58. A reminder of this toilsome period is to be found, many 
years later, in the letter addressed to J. M. Brockman: — 

Springfield, Illinois, September 25, i860. 
Dear Sir: Yours of the 24th, asking "the best mode 
of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the law," is re- 
ceived. The mode is very simple, though laborious and 
tedious. It is only to get the books and read and study 
them carefully. Begin with Blackstone's " Commentaries," 
and after reading it carefully through, say twice, take 
up Chitty's " Pleadings," Greenleaf's " Evidence," and 
Story's " Equity," etc., in succession. Work, work, work, 
is the main thing. Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

59. The Revised Laws of Illinois, edition of 1833, pp. 99-102, 
§1 and §9. Hill (57-58) is the only writer on Lincoln that 
has taken notice of this prohibition. 

60. There appears to be some ground for controversy as to 
when Lincoln was admitted to the bar. He, himself, pre- 
paring notes of his life for the Scripps biography, some- 
time during i860, wrote: " In the autumn of 1836 he ob- 
tained a law license." (See Works, vi, 33.) 

And Jesse W. Weik, Herndon's collaborator, referring to 



334 NOTES 

the records, states (Century Magazine, June, 1904, p. 279): 
" The first step in Lincoln's legal career is thus set forth in 
an entry found in the records of the Circuit Court of San- 
gamon County, Illinois, dated March 24, 1836. ' It is or- 
dered by the Court that it be certified that Abraham 
Lincoln is a person of good moral character.' After this 
necessary preliminary, as appears from the records of the 
clerk of the Supreme Court, he was on September 9 duly 
licensed to practise in all the courts of the State." 

But Hill (61) asserts:" He was legally qualified on March 
24, 1836, and his professional life properly dates from that 
day." 

Reaffirming this conclusion, Mr. Hill writes to the au- 
thor: " There is no doubt that Lincoln was legally admitted 
to practice March 24, 1836, as is shown by the papers on 
file; but casting back to find out when he was admitted to 
the bar, Lincoln undoubtedly relied upon the rolls of attor- 
neys for the year 1836, in which his name appeared Sep- 
tember 9th of that year." 

Summarizing the facts. Judge John P. Hand, of the Illi- 
nois Supreme Court, said in a Lincoln memorial address 
delivered on February 11, 1909: "He was licensed as an 
attorney, September 9, 1836, enrolled March i, 1837, ^^^ 
commenced practice April 21, 1837." (See Illinois Reports, 
ccxxxviii, 13; and MacChesne^', 204.) 

Yet beyond a doubt, Lincoln appeared as an attorney in 
actions at law, previous to April 21, 1837. Following the 
rather offhand ways of the day, he tried some cases at the 
bar, as we have seen, before all the requirements for his ad- 
mission had been complied with. The present writer ven- 
tures the opinion that, according to statute, three steps 
must have been taken before a person was, at this period, 
legally qualified to practice as an attorney or counselor at 
law, within the State. First, he had to obtain a certificate 
" of his good moral character," from a County Court; sec- 
ond, he had to secure a license signed by two justices of the 
Supreme Court; and third, having taken the oath of office, 
he had to have his name entered on the roll kept by the clerk 
of that court. It was not, therefore, until Lincoln had been 
formally enrolled that his career as a lawyer may correctly 
be said to have begun, (See Revised Laws of Illinois for 



NOTES 335 

1833, pp. 99-100; and a decision of the Supreme Court, 
December Term, 1840, in the matter of E. C. Fellows, an 
attorney who had failed to have his name enrolled — 
Illinois Reports, iii, 369,) 



CHAPTER II 

1. Nicolay, 53. See, also, Browne, 150-51 ; Coffin, 94. 

2. This narrati\'e of the interview has been collated from the 
several accounts of it given by Mr. Speed at various times. 
See Oldroyd, 145-46; Whitney, 16-17; Browne, 152-53; 
Clarke, 341-42; Herndon, i, 175-76. See, also, Arnold, 
53-54; Brooks, 80; Coffin, 95; Hapgood, 61-62. 

3. There are a number of variations in the different accounts 
of this episode, but the essential facts appear to be as here 
related. Comprehensive versions are given by Arnold, 39- 
40; Stowe, 19-20; Holland, 55-56; Browne, 1 19-20; Onstot, 
89-90; Brockett, 710; Jayne, 10; Noah Brooks, in Harper's 
Magazine, July, 1865, p. 226. 

4. According to Major Stuart, Lincoln was his partner from 
April 27, 1 837, to April 14, 1841; Judge Stephen T.Logan's, 
from April 14, 1 841, to about September 20, 1843; and 
William H. Herndon's, from about September 20, 1843, 
until the death of Mr. Lincoln. There appears to be some 
ground for the belief that the last partnership was formed 
some months later than is here stated. 

5. The oft-repeated statement that Lincoln disdained to keep 
accounts has, in his case as in that of another eminent law- 
yer, Patrick Henry, been confuted by the evidence of the 
fee-books themselves. 

6. Onstot, 58. 

7. The parallel between Lincoln and his running mate in the 
successful canvass of i860 might be drawn at this point 
also. Referring to Hamlin's early days in the practice of 
law, his biographer says: "He handled a good deal of money 
belonging to his clients, and it often happened that they 
did not call for it until some time after it had been collected. 
Mr. Hamlin, therefore, had at times considerable sums of 
money in his possession, and on one occasion he told a 
friend what disposition he made of such money and his rea- 
sons. He said, ' When I collect money for a client, I inclose 



33^ 



NOTES 



it in an addressed package, and lock the package up in my 
trunk until it is called for. I will not touch or use that 
money for my purposes under any circumstances, unless, 
of course, the owner should authorize it. The money be- 
longs to the owner. I have no more right to use it, even if 
I could replace it in five minutes, than I would have to take 
money that he might happen to have in his pocket-book.' " 
(Hamlin, 45.) 

8. This principle was recognized as early as Cicero's time. In 
his Ninth Philippic, eulogizing Servius Sulpicius, that most 
profound of Roman advocates, the orator said, according 
to Forsyth's version : " He did not consider himself a lawyer 
rather than a servant of justice, and his constant endeavor 
was to temper the severity of law, by reference to principles 
of equity. He had less pleasure in advising that actions 
should be brought, than in removing all cause for litigation. ' ' 

9. Works, ii, 142. Lincoln's comment — "the nominal win- 
ner is often a real loser" — suggests the similarity between 
his advice and that of Professor Porson, as expressed in that 
learned humorist's mock examination questions for stu- 
dents: — 

"What happens if you win your cause? " 
"You are nearly ruined." 
"What happens if you lose your cause?" 
"You are quite ruined." 

10. Browne's Lincoln and Men, i, 338; Browne, 220. 

11. For a few of these stories the reader is referred to Onstot, 
20; Stringer, i, 218; McClure's Yarns, 380; Gallaher, 46- 
47; Lincolnics, 30-31; MacChesney, 299-300; Depew's 
Speech, February 12, 1909, pp. 6-7; Dr. George M. Angell, 
in Bloomington (111.) Pantagraph, February 12, 1909. 

Lincoln was not the only great lawyer concerning whom 
such anecdotes might be told. The eminent New England 
advocate, Jeremiah Mason, is said to have been equally 
successful in bringing about compromises. "Mr. Mason," 
writes one who knew him well, " magnified his position by 
exerting all his influence to prevent litigation, or the com- 
mencement of suits upon mere quibbles, or for the purpose 
of procrastination, or to gratify personal vindictiveness, or 
retaliation. He was eminently a peacemaker, and was in- 
strumental in healing many a wound, and in preventing the 



NOTES 337 

useless expenditure of money, by a set of litigants, who were 
in the habit of annoying (employing?) lawyers to aid them 
in schemes of malice or revenge." (John P. Lord, quoted in 
Hillard's Memoir and Correspondence of Jeremiah Mason, 46.) 

12. Browne's Lincoln a?id Men, i, 339. 

13. Herndon, ii, 14. 

14. Browne, 218-19. Lincoln's expedient for preventing trivial 
litigation was similar in its essence to that of the New York 
attorney concerning whom Edwards, in his Pleasantries 
about Courts and Lawyers, tells this anecdote: — 

" In a certain part of our State, two Dutchmen, who 
built and used in common, a small bridge over a little 
stream which ran through their farms, had a dispute con- 
cerning certain repairs which it required. One of them de- 
clined to bear any portion of the expense necessary to the 
purchase of two or three planks. The aggrieved party went 
to a neighboring attorney and placing ten dollars, in two 
notes of five dollars each, in his hand, said — 

" ' I '11 give you all dish monies if you '11 make Hans do 
justice mit de pridge.' 

" ' How much will it cost to repair this bridge? ' asked the 
attorney. 

" 'Well, den, not more ash five tollars.' 

" ' Very well,' said the legal gentleman, pocketing one of 
the notes and giving the Dutchman the other, ' take this 
and go and get the bridge repaired. It 's the best course 
you can take.' 

"'Yaas,' responded the client slowly, 'y-a-a-s, dat ish 
more better as to quarrel mit Hans.' 

" But as he went home, he shook his head frequently, as 
if unable, after all, quite clearly to see how he had gained 
anything by going to the lawyer." 

15. This narrative is based on two interviews, secured for the 
author from Henry Rice, in the autumn of 1907 and in the 
spring of 1908, respectively. See, also, Markens, 24. 

16. Lincoln's refusal to take what he considered a bad case is 
in harmony, as far as civil actions go, with the practice of 
every high-minded lawyer. David Hoffman, of the Balti- 
more bar, drawing up, early in the nineteenth century, a 
code of ethics for the guidance of his students throughout 
their professional careers, prescribed as the eleventh of 



338 



NOTES 



fifty resolutions: " If, after duly examining a case, I am per- 
suaded that my client's claim or defense (as the case may 
be) cannot, or rather ought not to be sustained, I will 
promptly advise him to abandon it. To press it further in 
such a case, with the hope of gleaning some advantage by 
an extorted compromise, would be lending myself to a dis- 
honorable use of legal means in order to gain a portion of 
that, the whole of which I have reason to believe would be 
denied to him both by law and justice." 

17. Holland, 126; Browne, 162. But see Lamon, 317, for Mc- 
Henry's account of a somewhat similar interview that had 
a different termination. 

18. " Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be 
found than one who does this." (Notes for Law Lecture, in 
Works, ii, 142.) 

19. Tarbell, i, 248; McClure's Yarns, 359-60. 

20. Lamon, 325. 

21. It should, perhaps, be noted that in refusing Matteson's 
case Lincoln turned his back on one of his own influential 
clients, whom he had represented in the Supreme Court but 
a short time before this happened. See the appeal of Con- 
stant vs. Matteson et al., argued at the January term of 
1859, in the Second Grand Division. (Illinois Reports, 
xxii, 546-62.) 

22. James Judson Lord to William H. Herndon, in Herndon, 
ii, 14-15, note; Letter of Mrs. Katherine Lord Driscoll to 
the author. 

23. General John H. Littlefield, in Success, February, 1901, p. 
600; Lincolnics, 31. An interview, somewhat like these 
two, culled from the practice of the eminent Southern law- 
yer and statesman, Robert Toombs, is thus related by his 
biographer: " On one occasion he said to a client who had 
stated his case to him, ' Yes, you can recover in this suit, 
but you ought not to do so. This is a case In which law and 
justice are on opposite sides.' The client told him he would 
push the case, anyhow. ' Then,' replied Mr. Toombs, ' you 
must hire some one else to assist you in your damned rascal- 
ity.*" (Stovall. 18-19.) Another distinguished Southerner, 
Alexander H. Stephens, held equally conscientious opin- 
ions as to what constitutes a lawyer's duty. These views, 
based on a long and honorable career, occupy a notable 
place in his Recollections. (See Stephens, 383-89.) 



NOTES 339 

24. Rev. John Putnam Gulliver, in the New York Independent, 
September i, 1864. The article is reprinted in Carpenter, 
309-17. 

25. Atkinson, 28-29; Lamon, 40, note. 

26. For details concerning these and other similar incidents the 
reader is referred to: Curtis's Lincoln, 77; Browne, 646-47; 
Brooks, 426; Carpenter, 78, 1 14-15; Hill, 131, i98;Tarbell, 
i, 254; Bateman, 30-32; Flower, 63; Emerson, 5-9; Works, 
ii, 70, 368; ibid., iii, 32; ibid., ix, 26, 84-85; Debates, 13, 26; 
Scribner's Magazine, February, 1878, p. 565. See, also, 
Speed, 18. 

27. From the response by Justice David Davis, of the United 
States Supreme Court, to resolutions presented upon the 
death of Lincoln, at a session of the Federal Circuit Court 
held in Indianapolis, May 19, 1865. 

28. Ex-Chief Justice Caton's address to the Supreme Court 
of Illinois, May 3, 1865, in Caton, 12; Illinois Reports, 
xxxvii, 13. 

29. Barrett, 818; Browne, 235-36; Nicolay and Hay, i, 303-04. 

30. Swett to Herndon, in Herndon, ii, 246-47. 

31. Whitney, 261. 

32. Lamon, 324. 

33. This account of the incident is based chiefiy on statements 
made by District Attorney Ward Hill Lamon, himself 
(Lamon, 322), and by Judge David Davis, who probably 
referred to the affair in a story which he recalled, with un- 
important variations, many years later, for the entertain- 
ment of Ratclifife Hicks, a contributor to the Century Mag- 
azine of February, 1894, p. 638. Henry C. Whitney, it 
should be added, writing after Lamon but before Hicks, 
contradicted the former's narrative in almost every impor- 
tant particular. A careful reading, however, of Whitney's 
book (at pages 130-32 and 534), leads to the conclusion that 
the error lies with him rather than with Lamon and Davis; 
for he obviously confused the Patterson trial, in his mem- 
ory, with another Champaign County case. 

34. Letter from Abraham Lincoln to H. Keeling, dated March 
3, 1858, and quoted from manuscript in Herndon, i, 326. 

35. Shaw's letter of June 13, 1866, quoted from manuscript in 
Herndon, i, 323. 

36. Holland, 130; Stowe, 22. 



340 NOTES 

37. Joseph Gillespie's manuscript letter of October 8, 1886, 
quoted in Herndon, ii, 13-14; Lamon, 321-22. Gillespie 
was, to a precise degree, Lincoln's contemporary at the bar. 
Their enrollment dates from the same year — 1837. 

38. The same figure of speech was used, to describe a similar 
attitude of mind, by that other eminent lawyer, Horace 
Binney, leader for many years of the Philadelphia bar. In 
his private record, written for the eyes of his children, we 
find : " I never prosecuted a cause that I thought a dishonest 
one, and I have washed my hands of more than one that I 
discovered to be such after I had undertaken it." (Binney, 

443-) 

39. For the details of this anecdote the author collated the 
accounts in Browne, 228; Lamon, 324; and Stringer, i, 217. 
According to the last-mentioned authority, however, Lin- 
coln was found, not at the tavern, but in the Postville Park, 
playing townball with the boys. 

40. Whitney, 130-32, 262; see, also, 136. It was probably con- 
cerning this incident that the same colleague wrote in an- 
other work: "On one occasion, Swett and I sat on a bench 
in the extreme rear of the court-room while Lincoln closed 
to the jury on our side, and we were utterly astonished at 
the cruel mode in which he applied the knife to all the fine- 
spun theories we had crammed the jury with." (Whitney's 
Life, i, 175.)^ ^ 

41. The authenticity of this story has been questioned. It cer- 
tainly calls for confirmation, as the first case in which Lin- 
coln appeared before the State Supreme Court, according 
to the printed records (Illinois Reports, iii, 456-57), was 
that of Scammon vs. Cline. Here he was associated with 
another attorney, James L. Loop, of Belvidere, and repre- 
sented, not the appellant, but the defendant in error. The 
discrepancies are striking rather than vital. From the pecu- 
liar nature of that case Lincoln may well, at the time, have 
made the brief oral statement attributed to him; and, as we 
know, the decision which followed was, in fact, against his 
client. On the other hand, perhaps the scene did not take 
place during the argument on Scammon vs. Cline. If Judge 
Treat's narrative is correct in every particular, Lincoln 
must have made his first bow before the Supreme Court 
sometime during the three and a half years of practice that 



NOTES 341 

preceded this hearing. And he might have done so, too, 
without that fact appearing in the records. For the re- 
porter, finding the early material incomplete, and seeking 
to limit the size of the published volumes, did not include 
all the cases. It may be added that an account of this inci- 
dent has, in some form, been accepted by Herndon, i, 322- 
23; Lamon, 32i;Schurz, 16; Leland, 61 ; and Stoddard, 119. 
All these men knew Lincoln — some of them throughout 
almost his entire legal career. That they believed him cap- 
able of the course described in the anecdote is, perhaps, as 
significant as the story itself. 

An essay, giving the results of careful researches into the 
case of Scammon vs. Cline, by Richard V. Carpenter, was 
printed in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 
for October, 191 1, pp. 317-23. 
42. "Judge Davis often delegated his judicial functions to 
others. I have known of his getting Moon of Clinton to 
hold court for him in Bloomington for whole days; Lincoln 
to hold an entire term, and frequently to sit for short times; 
and I even knew of Colonel Bryant of Indiana to hold 
court for him in Danville. All judgments rendered by 
these lawyers were voidable. Time has probably now cured 
them. It was a hazardous business for them and the sheriff 
and suitors in their cases." (Whitney's Life, i, 192.) 

One of these irregular judges, it may be said in passing, 
more than returned the compliment, some years later, by 
elevating Davis to the bench of the United States Supreme 
Court; and the legality of that appointment has not been 
questioned. 

CHAPTER III 

1. It would not be correct, however, to say, as is sometimes 
said, that Lincoln won every case which he should have 
won. Contemporary lawyers testify to the contrary. 

2. Herndon, ii, 3; Whitney, 251. 

3. Hill, 225-26. 

4. Whitney, 259; Whitney's Life, i, 177. 

5. Anthony Thornton, in the Chicago Tribune, February 12, 
1900, p. 14. 

6. Illinois Reports, xxxvii, 15. 



342 NOTES 

7. Whitney, 262-63; Whitney's -^^7^. h 196. 

These tributes to Lincoln's honorable methods again 
recall the principles that contributed not a little toward 
Horace Binney's preeminence. In the review of his career 
he wrote: " I at all times disdained to practise any strata- 
gem, trick or artifice for the purpose of gaining an advan- 
tage over my adversary; and unless I thought him unfair, I 
was generally willing that he should see all my cards while 
I played them. I can truly say that I am not conscious of 
having lost anything by this candor; but, on the contrary, 
have repeatedly gained by it. If my client was at any time 
suspected, I had no reason to think that I was, by either 
the Court or the bar; and how many balancing cases, in the 
course of thirty-five years' practice, this sort of reputation 
assisted, I need not say." (Binney, 443.) 

8. Herndon, i, 326-28; Atlantic Monthly, April, 1867, p. 412. 

Whatever the practice at the Springfield bar may have 
been, Lincoln's objection to the making of a fictitious plea 
was of course not finical. No less an authority than Chief 
Justice Holt had said: "The attorney, if he puts in a false 
plea to delay justice, breaks his oath, and may be fined for 
putting a deceit on the Court." (Pierce vs. Blake, Salkeld's 
Reports, ii, 515. See, also, Johnson vs. Alston, Campbell's 
Reports, i, 176.) 

9. Whitney, 263-64; Herndon, ii, 17-18. It should be noted 
that April 24, 1856, fell on a Thursday, not a Saturday. 
Whether the 4 is a misprint for 6, or whether this term of , 
court extended to Saturday, May 24, or whether the error 
lies elsewhere, cannot now be determined. 

10. Browne's Lincoln and Men, i, 360-62. 

11. Lincoln to Trumbull, December 18, 1857, in the Century 

Magazine, February, 1909, p. 620. 

12. Justice David Davis from the bench of the Federal Circuit 
Court, at Indianapolis, May 19, 1865. 

13. Holland, 130; Lamon's Recollections, 19-20; Stowe, 22; 
Browne, 162. 

14. Koerner, ii, no. 

15. Recollections of Colonel Richard J. Hinton, in the Chicago 
Times-Herald, November 17, 1895. 

16. Holland, 80. See, also, Nicolay and Hay, i, 307; Ward, 
205, 270; Browne, 238. 



NOTES 343 

17. Mrs. Norman B. Judd, in Oldroyd, 523; also, in Tarbell, i, 
277-78. A report of Lincoln's argument, rather full, though 
far from complete, has been reprinted from the Chicago 
Daily Press, in Works, ii, 340-54, and Tarbell, ii, 324-30. 

18. Admissions that seemed to be of a more damaging nature 
than those which were made in this case have at times been 
known to assist, rather than interfere with, the winning of 
a verdict. How far counsel may go, along such lines, was 
illustrated in the practice of Daniel Webster. A more bril- 
liant, though less scrupulous, advocate than Lincoln, he 
went the limit. 

Once in Boston, defending a man who had been indicted 
for forgery, his first act — at the very beginning of the 
trial, before a witness had been called — was to arise and 
say: "May it please the Court, we admit the forgery, so 
that evidence on this point will be unnecessary. We deny 
that the note was uttered in this county." 

The astonishment of those present gave way to compre- 
hension, when it became evident that the prosecution could 
easily have made out a case of forgery against the prisoner; 
but that it could not so readily have proven, what was of 
equal importance, the issuing of the forged instrument in 
Suffolk County. For want of sufficient proof, on this very 
point, the defendant was acquitted. He might have fared 
differently if both the questions of forgery and utterance 
had been presented to the jury. It is not unlikely that had 
they listened to evidence on the crime itself, those facts 
would have so overshadowed other considerations in their 
minds as to bring about a conviction. Webster's avowal 
prevented this, and saved his unworthy client. 

19. Herndon, ii, 3; Whitney, 251. 

20. Lincoln to Linder, February 20, 1848, Works, ii, 3. 

21. Herndon, ii, 7. 

22. Arnold, 84. See, also, Whitney's Life, i, 173; Oldroyd, 37; 
Nicolay and Hay, i, 307. 

23. Herndon, ii, 7. 

24. Gibson W. Harris, quoted in Browne, 220. 

25. Letter of Justice David J. Brewer to the author ; and an arti- 
cle by him in the Atlmitic Monthly, November, 1906, p. 591. 

26. Caton, 13; Illinois Reports, xxxvii, 13. 

27. A statement made by Judge David Davis. 



344 NOTES 

28. Hill, 211-12. 

29. Letter of Hon. Shelby M. CuUom to the author; Bateman, 
13-15. See, also. Hill, 236-37 ; and T. W. S. Kidd, the crier 
of the court, in Tarbell, i, 273-75. 

30. Judge Lawrence Weldon, quoted in Hill, 212-15. 

31. A letter said to have been written by Lincoln to Mrs. 
Armstrong, offering her his services, is published in Selby 
(254), and Hobson (41-42) ; yet neither of these writers, re- 
sponding to inquiries by the author, has been able to throw 
any light on the question of its authenticity. According to 
other biographers, a communication of such a nature was 
received by Mrs. Armstrong, who stated, as they allege, that 
it had been lost. On the other hand, " Duff " himself, in his 
detailed narrative, makes no reference to a letter from Mr. 
Lincoln; and John, his younger brother, in an equally full 
account of the affair, taken down for the author by Thomas 
D. Masters of Springfield, Illinois, expresses the opinion 
that no written message on the subject was ever received. 
The Masters notes concerning this topic read: — 

"Mr. Armstrong has no recollection of hearing of any 
letter being written by Mr. Lincoln to his mother, at the 
time his brother got into the trouble in question; and he re- 
quests me to say to you that he is quite sure that had such 
a letter been written he would have known of it. He points 
out to me that his mother was unable to read, and in that 
early day, had she received a letter from a man such as Lin- 
coln then was, — a much-talked-about lawyer in Spring- 
field, — that by reason of the exigencies of the occasion, 
and the interest such a letter would have excited in the 
household, he certainly would have known of it. His 
recollection is that his mother, probably after the cause 
was venued to Cass County, made a trip to Springfield, of 
course, knowing Mr. Lincoln, and feeling friendly to him, 
and having confidence in him, for the purpose of employing 
him to assist in the defense of her son at Beardstown." 

32. A singular parallel presents itself in ancient Athenian his- 
tory, where Alcibiades and his friends were charged, as 
Plutarch relates, with mutilating the images of Mercury, 
on a certain night. When one of the informers was asked 
how he managed to recognize the features of the accused in 
the darkness, he answered, — "I saw them by the light of 
the moon," — a palpable misstatement, as the affair hap- 



NOTES 345 

pened at the time of a new moon which gave practically no 
light. This anecdote, however, could hardly have prompted 
Lincoln to consult an almanac in the Armstrong case, 
because he had not read Plutarch's Lives at the time of that 
trial, and only did so two years later. 

33. Judge Abram Bergen, quoted by James L. King, in the 
North American Review, February, 1898, pp. 193-94. 
Bergen's testimony should be supplemented by a state- 
ment which "Duff" Armstrong himself made, in his re- 
spectable old age, to J. McCan Davis. It was published in 
the New York Sun of June 7, 1896. According to this re- 
port Armstrong then declared: "The almanac used by Lin- 
coln was one which my cousin, Jake Jones, furnished him. 
On the morning of the trial I was taken outside the court- 
room to talk to Lincoln. Jake Jones was with us. Lincoln 
said he wanted an almanac for 1857. Jake went right off 
and got one, and brought it to 'Uncle Abe.' It was an 
almanac for the proper year, and there was no fraud about 
it." 

34. Ram, 269-70, note, 505. It is interesting to note that a 
somewhat similar tale is frequently met with among the 
anecdotes of the English bar. A barrister at the "Old 
Bailey," according to this version, secured the acquittal of 
a client charged with highway robbery by introducing an 
almanac to prove that there was darkness on a certain night, 
instead of the bright moonlight, in which the prosecuting 
witness claimed to have distinguished the prisoner's fea- 
tures. The almanac, however, as afterwards transpired, 
had been fraudulently so printed for that occasion. 

35. Those who wish to collate what has been published about 
the Armstrong affair may find these references of service: 
Gridley's Defense, 3-23; Hill, 229-34; Hobson, 40-50; 
Tarbell, i, 270-73; Lamon, 327-31 ; Arnold, 87-89; Onstot, 
98-100; Irelan, xvi, 142-44; Oldroyd, 213-15; Herndon, 
ii, 26-28; Barrett, 63-66; Barrett (New), i, 152-54; Hol- 
land, 128-29; Browne, 224-27; Brockett, 82-85; Selby, 94- 
97, 254; Phillips's Men Who Knew, 62-63; Stoddard, 157- 
60; Raymond, 29-31; Brooks, 127-29; French, 75-76; 
Whipple, 261-65; Bartlett, 111-15; Curtis's Lincoln, 75; 
Cofhn, 162-63; Stowe, 23-25; Morgan, 102-03; Nicolay's 
Boy's Life, 94-97; Hanaford, 44-48; Pratt, 78-82; Thayer, 
285-93; McClure's Stories, 97-99; Williams, 6S-73; Lin- 



34^ 



NOTES 



colnics, 64-66; Jones, 15; Master, 20-22; New York Sun, 
June 7, 1896; North American Review, February, 1898, pp. 
191-95; Kankakee (111.) Republican, February 12, 1909, 
Bloomington (111.) Pantagraph, January 20, 1912; also 
Eggleston's The Graysons, in which the trial and the al- 
manac incident are used by the novelist with good effect. 

36. Tarbell, i, 265; Emerson, 5. 

37. From an unpublished manuscript entitled "Lincoln on 
the Stump and at the Bar," by Judge Scott, quoted in 
Tarbell, i, 253-54. 

38. Judge William M. Dickson, in Harper's Magazine, June, 
1884, p. 63; Barrett (New), i, 121-22. See, also, Alban J. 
Conant, in Liber Scriptorum, 175-76, and in McClures 
Magazine, March, 1909, p. 516; Chauncey M. Depew, in 
Rice, 432; Browne, 229-30; Curtis's Lwco/n, 85; McClure's 
Yarns, 457; McClure's Stories, 92; Pratt, 59-60. 

39. Collated from accounts by George W. Minier, in Oldroyd, 
187-89, and in Herndon, ii, 327-28; also: Arnold, 85-87; 
Brooks, 122-24; Coffin, 108; Pratt, 68-69. 

40. Binney, 444. 

41 . Lincoln w-ould doubtless have approved of David Hoffman's 
rule on this subject. It read: " I will never plead or other- 
wise avail of the bar of infancy against an honest demand. 
If my client possesses the ability to pay, and has no other 
legal or moral defense than that it was contracted by him 
when under the age of twenty-one years, he must seek for 
other counsel to sustain him in such a defense. And al- 
though in this, as well as in that of limitation, the law has 
given the defense, and contemplates in the one case to in- 
duce claimants to a timely prosecution of their rights, and 
in the other designs to protect a class of persons who by 
reason of tender age are peculiarly liable to be imposed on, 
yet in both cases I shall claim to be the sole judge (the pleas 
not being compulsory) of the occasions proper for their use. ' ' 

42. Remarks of Justice David Davis in the Federal Circuit 
Court at Indianapolis, May 19, 1865. 

43. It may be of interest to note that these same revolution- 
ary properties, and the same stage-setting of frozen ground 
flecked with the blood of patriots' unshod feet, had served 
Patrick Henry, many years before, in the defense of John 
Venable, Commissary of the Continental Army, sued by 
John Hook, a Tory, for the value of some steers seized to 



NOTES 347 

feed the hungry troops. But Henry's eloquence had not pre- 
vailed as fully as Lincoln's did; for the jury found a verdict, 
though in a nominal sum, against the great Virginian's client. 

44. Herndon, ii, 9-1 1 ; see, also, Holland, 127. For brief ac- 
counts and comments based on Herndon's and on Hol- 
land's narratives the reader is referred to: Hapgood, 108; 
Browne, 162-63; Hill, 215-16; Cofifin, 104-05; Tarbell, i, 
250; Pratt, 74-76; Selby, 97-98; McClure's Stories, 101. 

45. Herndon, i, 328-30. 

A brief and less picturesque account of the incident was 
furnished to the author, about half a century after the 
event, by the Honorable Shelby M. Cullom, one of the 
counsel for the defense. He wrote: "During the trial, a 
question was raised as to the admissibility of certain testi- 
mony, which was very important to the defense. The 
Judge took an hour to come to a conclusion as to what he 
ought to do; and when he began to decide the question, he 
seemed to be leaning against the admissibility of the testi- 
mony. Lincoln saw that he was inclined that way, and 
sprang upon his feet, and manifested such intense earnest- 
ness that it appeared to change the Judge's disposition, and 
he decided in favor of the admissibility of the testimony." 

Still, Herndon probably did not overstate the case. For 
the official crier, Captain Thomas VV. S. Kidd, referring to 
that same episode, said: "Mr. Lincoln made a display of 
anger, the like of which I never saw exhibited by him before 
or after. He roared in the excess of his denunciation of 
the action of the Court." (Rochester Herald, January 17, 
1904. See Kidd, also, in Tarbell, i, 251-52.) 

CHAPTER IV 

I. Though under very dififerent circumstances, Lincoln's ela- 
tion seems not unlike that of another famous man whose 
later life touched his at several points. The first dollar 
earned by Frederick Douglass, on free soil, in New Bed- 
ford, was paid to him, as he tells us, for stowing away a pile 
of coal for Mrs. Ephraim Peabody, the wife of a Unitarian 
minister. " I was not long in accomplishing the job," runs 
his story, "when the dear lady put into my hand two silver 
half-dollars. To understand the emotion which swelled my 
heart as I clasped this money, realizing that I had no mas- 



348 



NOTES 



ter who could take it from me, — that it was mine, — that 
my hands were my own, and could earn more of the pre- 
cious coin, — one must have been in some sense himself a 
slave." (Douglass, 210.) 

2. Lamon, pointing out some inconsistencies in the details of 
this anecdote as it is generally quoted, expresses doubts 
concerning its authenticity. He evidently did not know 
how often Lincoln had told the story to different persons. 
Their versions, as might be expected, vary somewhat, but 
they agree in the essential facts. See: Carpenter, 96-98; 
William D. Kelley, in Rice, 279-80; Leonard Swett, in 
Rice, 457-58; Holland, 33-34; Brooks, 38; Pratt, 16-18; 
Morgan, 27-28; Lamon, 72; McClure's Stories, 17-18; 
Hanaford, 156-58; Boyden, 83-84; Irelan, xvi, 62-64; 
Tarbell, i, 38-39; Browne, 72-73; Banks, 14-16; Ward, 
277-78; Thayer, 169-71; Ludlow, 66-68; Curtis's Lincoln, 
24-25; Whipple, 62-63; Selby, 52-53; Raymond, 754; 
Onstot, 51-52; Egbert L. Viele, in Scribner's Magazine, 
October, 1878, p. 817; Alban J. Conant, in McClure's Maga- 
zine, March, 1909, p. 514; interview with Governor Frank 
Fuller, in the New York Times, October i, 191 1, p. 10. 

3. Browne's Lincoln and Meti, i, 259-61, 356; ii, 90-91. 

4. Holland, 93. 

5. See Lincoln to Speed, June 19, 1841, in Works, i, 168-75, 
and in Lamon, 318-19; also, Gibson W. Harris, in Colum- 
bia (Ky.) Spectator, January 27, 1905. 

6. Oldroyd, 394-95- 

7. Onstot, 41-44. 

8. Lincoln to Whitney, December 18, 1857, in Works, xi, 103. 

9. Brockett, 702-03; McClure's Yar7is, 341-42; Barrett 
(New), i, 154-55; interview with Mrs. Rose Linder Wilkin- 
son, in Chicago Times-Herald, September 11, 1895. 

10. The nature of these kindnesses may be inferred from the 
following despatch: — 

Executive Mansion, December 26, 1863. 
Hon. U. F. Linder, 
Chicago, 111.: 
Your son Dan has just left me, with my order to the Sec- 
retary of War, to administer to him the oath of allegiance, 

discharge him, and send him to you. . ^ 

A. Lincoln. 

{Works, ix, 275; see, also, ibid., 272. 



NOTES 349 

11. Boston Advertiser, February 12, 1909, p. 7. 

12. Stowe, 21; Carpenter, 245; Browne, 229; French, 80; 
McCIure's Stories, 89-91 ; Thayer, 284-85 ; Gallaher, 39-40. 

13. Gibson W. Harris, in Browne, 220. 

14. Koerner, ii, 112. 

15. Caroline H. Dall, in Atlantic Monthly, April, 1867, p. 413. 

16. Tarbell, i, 267-68; Curtis's Lincoln, 74-75; Thomas Lewis, 
in Leslie's Weekly, February 16, 1899. 

17. Browne, 224. 

18. G. VV. Nance, in Oldroyd, 557. 

19. Charles W. Moores, in American Law Review, January- 
February, 1911, p. 92. 

20. Henry Rickel, in Cedar Rapids Gazette, February 6, 1909, 
p. I. 

21. Ward, 242-46; Jennings, 93-98. 

22. Father Chiniquy reproduces in his book an engraved fac- 
simile of the due-bill, dated May 23, 1856. It is undeni- 
ably in Lincoln's handwriting, but no explanation has been 
offered to reconcile the date with the priest's statement 
that the paper was written in October, at the time of the 
second trial. The author based his narrative of this affair 
upon Chiniquy, 566, 620-67 ; Whitney, 53-55, 136-37; and 
a brief of the Circuit Court records at Urbana, Illinois, 
made for the writer by Judge Joseph O. Cunningham. 

23. George P. Floyd, in McCIure's Magazine, January, 1908, 

p. 303- 

24. Lamon's Recollections, 17-19; see, also, Browne's Lincoln 
and Men, i, 348-51. There are a few other examples, in 
legal history, of high-minded lawyers rejecting what they 
regarded as excessive fees. One notable English instance is 
thus related by Lord Brougham concerning Topping: — 

"A general retainer of a thousand guineas was brought 
to him to cover the Baltic cases then in progress. His an- 
swer was, that this indicated either a doubt of his doing his 
duty on the ordinary terms known in the profession (one 
guinea particular, and five guineas general retainer) — or 
an expectation that he should, on being thus retained, do 
something beyond the line of his duty; and therefore he 
must decline it. His clerk then accepted of the usual sum 
of five guineas, and he led on those important cases, for the 
defendants." 



350 NOTES 

So also Charles O'Conor, leader for many years of the 
New York bar, subordinated money-making to a sense of 
professional propriety. His friend, William H. Winters, 
Librarian of the Law Institute, relates that a client once 
urged the famous pleader, with some insistence, to accept 
a very much larger fee than the lawyer had charged. 
O'Conor, becoming indignant, manifested in his own forci- 
ble way how this annoyed him. He denied the right of any 
one to dictate what his pay for legal services should be, and 
dismissed the presumptuous client without ceremony. 
25. There is a companion tale current among English lawyers 
concerning another member of the bar, at an earlier period, 
who was accused by his fellow barristers of having de- 
graded their order by accepting payment for services in 
copper. Upon being arraigned for this offense at their 
Common Hall he defended himself, — so the tradition 
runs, — with the following plea in confession and avoid- 
ance: " I fully admit that I took a fee from him in copper, 
and not one but several, and not only fees in copper but fees 
in silver. But I pledge my honor, as a Sergeant, that I 
never took a single fee from him in silver until I had got all 
his gold, and that I never took a fee from him in copper 
until I had got all his silver, — and you don't call that a 
degradation of our order." 
,,26. Whitney, 81. 

27. Works, xi, 98-99. 

28. E. S. Nadal, in Scribner's Magazine, March, 1906, p. 368. 

29. Herndon, i, 324-25. 

30. That bafifling question as to how the value of a lawyer's 
services should be arrived at was thus stated in Lincoln's 
trial brief: "Are or not the amount of labor, the doubtful- 
ness and difficulty of the question, the degree of success in 
the result, and the amount of pecuniary interest involved, 
not merely in the particular case, but covered by the prin- 
ciple decided, and thereby secured to the client, all proper 
elements, by the custom of the profession to consider in 
determining what is a reasonable fee in a given case? " 

For an answer that may serve, in part, at least, the 
reader is referred to an opinion, which had been delivered 
some years previously by Chief Justice John B. Gibson, 
of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Discussing the fees 



NOTES 351 

earned by an attorney in important litigation, he said: " It 
is not to be doubted that responsibility, in a confidential 
employment, is a legitimate subject of compensation, and 
in proportion to the magnitude of the interests committed 
to the agents. ... A lawyer charged with particular prep- 
arations for a lawsuit, is not to be made responsible, or paid, 
as a porter or a shoemaker." (Pennsylvania Reports, vii, 
545-46.) 

31. Lincoln's attitude in this particular affords another strik- 
ing contrast to that of David Hoffman, who lays down the 
rule: " I will charge for my services what my judgment and 
conscience inform me is my due, and nothing more. If that 
be withheld, it will be no fit matter for arbitration; for no 
one but myself can adequately judge of such services, and 
after they are successfully rendered they are apt to be 
ungratefully forgotten. I will then receive what the client 
offers, or the laws of the country may award, but in either 
case he must never hope to be again my client." 

32. The most fruitful references on this topic are: Herndon, ii, 
21-22; Whitney's Life, i, 184-85; Hill, 250-54, 261, 316- 
19; Tarbell, i, 258-60; Works, ii, 288-89; Lincoln as Attor- 
ney, passim; Curtis's Lincoln, 72; Illinois Reports, xvii, 
291-99; Koerner, ii, 111-12. 

33. Jesse W. Weik, in Century Magazine, June, 1904, pp. 282, 
286; Herndon, i, 251. 

34. Lincoln to Speed, July 4, 1842, in Lamon, 251; Works, i, 
219. 

35. Browne, 180-82; Coffin, 123; Gallaher, 31; Hapgood, 85; 
Jesse W. Weik, in Century Magazine, June, 1904, p. 280. 

36. Four children, in all, were born to Abraham and Mary 
Todd Lincoln. They were: Robert Todd, August i, 1843; 
Edward Baker, March 10, 1846; William Wallace, Decem- 
ber 21, 1850; and Thomas, April 4, 1853. 

37. Some years after the purchase of this cottage, its modest 
dimensions were enlarged by the addition of another story 
to meet the requirements of an increased family. 

38. Leonard W. Volk, quoted in the Outlook, February 13, 
1909, p. 348, 

39. Lincoln's straightway habit of waiting on himself had 
striking illustration while he was in Congress. Calling for 
some law books at the library of the Supreme Court, as the 



352 NOTES 

librarian relates, he tied them in a huge bandana handker- 
chief which he took from his pocket, passed a stick, brought 
for the purpose, through the knotted ends, slung the bun- 
dle across his shoulder and carried it thus to his lodgings, 
whence the volumes were returned later in the same primi- 
tive fashion. When a still greater public honor than that of 
Congressman came to him, one of his neighbors in Spring- 
field exclaimed: "What! Abe Lincoln nominated for Presi- 
dent of the United States! Can it be possible? A man that 
buys a ten-cent beefsteak for his breakfast, and carries it 
home himself." 

40. Herndon, ii, 16. 

41. Joseph Gillespie, in Oldroyd, 462. Still another one of the 
famous cavalcade, Leonard Swett, said : " Beds were always 
too short, coffee in the morning burned or otherwise bad, 
food often indifferent, roads simply trails, streams without 
bridges and often swollen, and had to be swum, sloughs 
often muddy and almost impassable, and we had to help 
the horses, when the wagon mired down, with fence-rails for 
pries, and yet I never heard Lincoln complain of anything." 

In the same vein, Henry C. Whitney wrote: "At the 
table, he ate what came first, without discrimination or 
choice. Whatever room at the hotel came handy, or what- 
ever bed he came to first, he took without criticism or in- 
spection." 

42. Quoted from manuscript of Ninian W. Edwards by Hern- 
don, i, 186; also: Lamon, 190; French, 60; Coffin, 99; 
Browne, 138-39; Master, 55-56. 

43. Whitney, 32; see, also, Herndon, ii, 15-16. 

44. Schurz, ii, 90-91. 

45. Chief Justice John Marshall, whom Lincoln resembled in 
not a few particulars, is said to have made a similarly un- 
favorable impression upon a prospective client, during his 
younger days at the Richmond bar. But in the Virginian's 
case, the critical suitor discovered, even before the trial 
began, that a poorly dressed lawyer is not necessarily a 
poor advocate. So Marshall was retained, at the eleventh 
hour, to assist an immaculately attired colleague, whose 
ability was found to fall far short of the promise held forth 
by broadcloth and powdered wig. 

46. Master, 224-25, 469. 



NOTES 353 

47. Works, iv, 199. 

48. Jayne, 1 1 ; and Dr. William Jayne to the author, October 
2, 1912. 

49. Gibson W. Harris, quoted in Columbia (Ky.) Spectator, 
January 27, 1905. The same witness, writing elsewhere 
(Browne, 219) on the same theme, says: "Mr. Lincoln had 
a heart that was more a woman's than a man's, — filled to 
overflowing with sympathy for those in trouble, and ever 
ready to relieve them by any means in his power." 

50. Mrs. Lincoln to Mrs. Keckley, November 15, 1867, in 
Keckley, 352. 

51. John F. Mendonsa to the author, August 31, 1912. 

52. Haynie, 7-8. 

53. Fellowship, 1908, pp. 12-13; see, also, Works, ii, 313-14. 

54. Lincoln to Johnston, January 12, 1851, Works, ii, 148. 

55. Works, ii, 96. 

56. This deed may be found in Coles County Deed Records, G, 
p. 5. Of the same date, October 25, 1841, entered in Mort- 
gage Record, i, p. 43, is an instrument whereby Abraham 
Lincoln binds himself and his heirs to convey the property 
to John D. Johnston or his heirs, after the death of the 
parents, upon repayment of the two hundred dollars, with- 
out interest and without regard to any increase in the value 
of the tract. 

57. For further light on these matters the reader is referred 
to the letters from Lincoln to Johnston in Works, ii, 135, 
144-46, 147-53; arid to the deed published in Gridley, 
145-46. 

58. Lincoln's ownership of this land, in the town named for 
him, is further evidence of his ready amiability toward 
friends, where monetary matters were concerned. The 
lot, situated on the south side of the court-house square, 
had belonged to James Primm, a well-known court official 
and public man of Logan County. Finding himself in 
financial difficulties, he had borrowed four hundred dol- 
lars on his promise to pay, which Lincoln obligingly en- 
dorsed. But when the time for payment arrived, the 
maker of the note was unable to meet it, so the endorser 
had found himself obliged to pay. Lincoln did so, and 
some time later Primm, by way of reimbursement, had 
given him a deed of the lot. (See Stringer, i, 221-22.) 



354 NOTES 

59. E. J. Edwards, in New York Tmes, January 24, 1909. For 
other accounts see: Raymond, 100; Browne, 314-15; Cur- 
tis's Lincoln, 45; Ward, 281; Thayer, 313-14; Lincolnics, 
93-94. As having a further bearing on the question of 
Lincoln's estate in i860, these references may be service- 
able: Works, \{, 31; Arnold, 83, 154-55; Whitney, 26; Hern- 
don, i, 91-92; Oldroyd, 32; Lamon, 472; Lamon's Recollec- 
tions, 20; Holland, 127; Hobson, 100-04; Browne, 200-01; 
Rice, 587; Curtis's Lincoln, 74; McClure's Magazine, 
March, 1909, pp. 514-15; New York Times, October i, 
1911, p. 10. 

CHAPTER V 

1. Lamon, 126; Works, xi, 97; see, also, the Autobiography, 
in Works, vi, 31. 

2. Works, vi, 31. 

3. Address to the People of Sangamon County, March 9, 
1832, in Works, i, 8. 

4. These scenes, until then happily without parallel in Ameri- 
can history, recall the political slaughter with which Charles 
James Fox had seventy years before signalized a crushing 
victory in the British House of Commons. To quote his 
biographer: " The fight was over, and the butchery began. 
Every one who belonged to the beaten party was sacrificed 
without mercy, with all his kindred and dependents; and 
those public officers who were unlucky enough to have no 
political connections fared as ill as the civil population of a 
district which is the seat of war between two contending 
armies. Clerks, messengers, excisemen, coast-guardsmen, 
and pensioners were ruined by shoals because they had no 
vote for a member of Parliament, or because they had sup- 
ported a member who had opposed the peace." (Trevel- 
yan's Fox, 28.) 

5. Greeley, 20. 

6. During Lincoln's first year in the Illinois Legislature he 
voted steadily with the minority against the adoption of 
resolutions which the Democratic majority had intro- 
duced to uphold President Jackson in his memorable strug- 
gle against the United States Bank. But when it came to 
voting on one resolution which condemned the National 



NOTES 355 

Senate for discourteous treatment of the old hero, and on 
another which commended the Illinois delegation in Con- 
gress for supporting the Administration, Lincoln turned 
away from his political associates, and had himself recorded, 
both times, in Jackson's favor. (See Illinois House Jour- 
nal, 1835, pp. 213-17, 258-63.) 

7. Works, vi, 31-32. 

8. The whole number of citizens who voted at New Salem, 
on August 6, 1832, amounted to 300; but as 10 of these 
refrained from expressing their preferences for Represen- 
tatives, only 13 actually appear on the records as voting 
against Lincoln. No election-tickets or ballot-boxes were 
used in Illinois at this time. The viva-voce method was 
employed; and as each voter stated his choice, he saw it 
recorded opposite his name in the poll-book. 

9. It is interesting to add that in this election of 1 832, the coun- 
try at large gave Jackson 219 electoral votes, and Clay 49. 

10. Letter from Judge Stephen T. Logan, quoted in Nicolay 
and Hay, i, 102-03, note; and Master, 47. 

11. The practice of carrying documents in his hat became a 
habit with Lincoln. While at the bar in Springfield, long 
after the postmastership had become a memory, he ex- 
plained his failure to answer a communication promptly, 
by writing: "When I received your letter I put it in my 
old hat, and buying a new one the next day, the old one 
was set aside, and so the letter was lost sight of for a time." 
(See Tarbell, i, 98; and Tarbell's Early Life, 179.) 

12. Lincoln was appointed Postmaster at New Salem on May 
7, 1833. He served until May 30, 1836, by which time 
the population of the place had fallen off to such an extent 
that the office was discontinued, and its business transferred 
to Petersburg. 

13. Herndon, i, iii. See, also: Onstot, 249; Tarbell's Early 
Life, 181 ; Tarbell, i, 99; Coffin, 81. Some currency having 
been given to an exaggerated and obviously erroneous 
report of the incident, Mr. Carpenter (i 10-12) repeated 
that version one day in the White House to Mr. Lincoln. 
The President thought they had "stretched the facts 
somewhat"; but his denial, such as it was, leaves the orig- 
inal story told by Simmons to Herndon, practically un- 
impeached. 



356 



NOTES 



14. For a comprehensive note in which the local election re- 
turns of 1834 are collated, the reader is referred to Mas- 
ter, § 22, pp. 445-46. 

15. In a referendum of the question submitted to the people 
at the election of 1834, 7514 voters expressed a preference 
for Alton, 7148 for Vandalia, 7044 for Springfield, 744 for 
Illiopolis the geographical center, 486 for Peoria, and 272 
for Jacksonville. When the final balloting took place in 
the General Assembly, twenty-nine places were voted 
upon. (See Parrish's Illinois, 313.) 

16. Whitney, i, 139; Nicolay and Hay, i, 139. 

17. Details of these encounters are related in Master, 60- 
62. 

18. Lamon, 195; Herndon, i, 166. 

19. General T. H. Henderson, in Tarbell, i, 139. 

20. Whitney's Life, 1, 146. 

21. Statement of Coleman Smoot, in Lamon, 157. As Lincoln 
was thus supplied with sufficient means to defray his 
traveling expenses, the oft-repeated story, which depicts 
him as trudging, pack on back, over the road to V'andalia, 
may perhaps, with propriety, be assigned to a place among 
those pleasing traditions of history that are found, upon 
close scrutiny, to be more picturesque than plausible. 

22. Nicolay and Hay, i, 158; Pratt, 52-53; Cofifin, 125-27; 
Nicolay's Boy's Life, 59. Lincoln's experience, it should 
be noted, in canvassing his district with a nominal outlay 
of money, was not uncommon. Gustav Koerner, running 
for the Illinois Legislature on the Democratic ticket, a 
few years later, did so under similar circumstances. " There 
were hardly," he tells us, "any election expenses. We al- 
ways stayed with friends when traveling through the 
county. We had our horses anyway. My entire election- 
eering expenses amounted to four dollars, and that for the 
printing of tickets. One Democratic Frenchman from the 
Bottom afterwards sent me a bill of ^6.65 for which he 
said he had gratuitously treated for me. As he was a good 
fellow, I paid him, although I had not given him the 
slightest authority to do so." (Koerner, i, 468-69.) 

23. See letter of Lincoln to Stuart, February 14, 1839, in 
Works, xi, 98. 

24. Works, i, 6-7. 



NOTES 357 

25. This is exclusive of what was appropriated for the Illinois 
and Michigan Canal, then already in process of construc- 
tion. That enterprise, the other improvement projects, 
and a few smaller public outlays carried the State debt, 
by the close of 1842, above $15,000,000. 

26. Works, i, 146. 

27. An Act to establish and maintain a General System of 
Internal Improvements. Approved February 27, 1837. 
Section 22, Illinois Session Laws, 1836-37. 

28. Works, i, 154-55; Lamon, 213-15. 

29. Gillespie, 24-25; Lamon, 216-17; Nicolay and Hay, i, 
161-62; Davidson, 422-27; Herndon, i, 217; Morse, i, 60; 
Hapgood, 72-73. It may be of interest to note that Lin- 
coln and his two colleagues were not the only acrobatic 
legislators revealed by our early local histories. General 
Lew Wallace, in his Autobiography (i, 251), tells, with con- 
trition, how he bolted from the Indiana Senate to prevent 
an election of United States Senator; and Thaddeus Ste- 
vens, during his turbulent days in the Pennsylvania House 
of Representatives, jumped from a window after a scene 
of violence, in which, by a singular coincidence, he too 
had acted as the Whig leader, 

30. Lamon, 324; Browne, 237. 

31. Works, i, 27. 

32. Works, i, 135-37- 

33. Joshua F. Speed in Herndon, i, 161-63; Speed, 17-18; 
Speed, in Oldroyd, 143-45; Master, 50-52, 446. 

34. Holland, 97-98. 

35. Eulogy on Henry Clay, in Works, ii, 165. 

36. In the ballot for Speaker of the Illinois House of Repre- 
sentatives on December 3, 1838, William Lee D. Ewing 
received 43 votes, and Abraham Lincoln 38 votes. In a 
similar contest on November 24, 1840, Ewing received 
46 votes, and Lincoln 36 votes. 

37. Browne's Lincoln and Men, 185. 

38. W^hite, 19-20. 

39. Joseph D. Roper, in Springfield (111.) Journal, January 
30, 1909. 

40. Gibson W. Harris, in Woman's Home Companio7i, Decem- 
ber, 1903, p. 15. 

41. Herndon, ii, 45. 



358 



NOTES 



42. Works, i, 142-45. 

43. During Lincoln's last term in the Illinois House of Repre- 
sentatives he offered the following resolution: — 

"Resolved, that so much of the Governor's message 
as relates to fraudulent voting, and other fraudulent 
practices at elections, be referred to the Committee on 
Elections, with instructions to said committee to prepare 
and report to the House a bill for such an act as may, in 
their judgment, afford the greatest possible protection of 
the elective franchise against all frauds of all sorts what- 
soever." 

This failed of adoption, and in its stead was passed a 
substitute offered by John A. McClernand, one of the 
Democratic leaders. (See Illinois House Journals, 1840- 
41, p. 34; and Works, i, 152-53.)^^ 

44. Horace White, in Herndon, i, xxii. 

45. Lincoln to Herndon, June 22, 1848, Works, ii, 50. See, 
also: Herndon, i, 270-72; Lamon, 295. 

46. Phillips's Men Who Knew, 160-62. 

47. Whitney, 1 17. 

48. Schurz, ii, 91. 

49. The sequel to this little adventure, as Mr. Nelson tells it, 
should not be omitted. " I had many opportunities after 
the stage ride," he relates, " to cultivate Mr. Lincoln's 
acquaintance, and was a zealous advocate of his nomina- 
tion and election to the Presidency. Before leaving his 
home for Washington, Mr. Lincoln caused John P. Usher 
and myself to be invited to accompany him. We agreed 
to join him in Indianapolis. On reaching that city the 
Presidential party had already arrived, and upon inquiry 
we were informed that the President-elect was in the din- 
ing-room of the hotel, at supper. Passing through, we saw 
that every seat at the numerous tables was occupied, but 
failed to find Mr. Lincoln. As we were nearing the door 
to the office of the hotel, a long arm reached to my shoulder 
and a shrill voice exclaimed, ' Hello, Nelson ! Do you think, 
after all, the world is going to follow the darned thing off? ' 
It was Mr. Lincoln." (Herndon, i, 303-06. See, also: Coffin, 
132; Selby, 89-90; Williams, 136-37; McClure's Yarns, 
410.) 

50. Herndon, i, 253. 



NOTES 359 

51. The affair with James Shields. See Master, 65-77. 

52. Lincoln to Martin M. Morris, March 26, 1843, Works, i, 
262. 

53. A. Y. Ellis, in Lamon, 143; and in Herndon, i, 255. 

54. For an amusing account of how Lincoln exposed one of 
these demagogues to public ridicule, on the stump, see Mas- 
ter, 54-56. 

55. Works, V, 238-39. 

56. " He took his friend James Matheney out into the woods 
with him one day and, calling up the bitter features of 
the canvass, protested ' vehemently and with great em- 
phasis ' that he was anything but aristocratic and proud. 
'Why, Jim,' he said, ' I am now and always shall be the 
same Abe Lincoln I was when you first saw me.' " (Hern- 
don, i, 256; Lamon, 273.) 

57. Lincoln's second son, born a few years later, on March 
10, 1846, was named for Baker. 

58. Lincoln to Speed, March 24, 1843, Works, i, 261. 

59. Lincoln to Morris, March 26, 1843, Works, i, 262-65. See, 
also, the letter to Morris of April 14, 1843, Works, i, 265- 
66. 

60. General J. M. Ruggles, quoted in Tarbell, i, 195-96; Cur- 
tis's Lincoln, 138. 

61. Lincoln to Speed, May 18, 1843, Works, i, 268. This let- 
ter was written after the convention. To accord with that 
fact, the obvious printer's error in punctuation has been 
corrected. 

62. Lincoln to Hardin, May 11, 1843, Works, i, 266-67. 

63. Lincoln's Autobiography, in Works, vi, 36-37; Scripps, 
18, the authorized campaign biography of which Lincoln 
critically read the advance sheets. See, also: Nicolay, 
73-74- 90; Newton, 19; Dr. Robert Boal, in Peoria (111.) 
Herald, February 14, 1899; Gibson W. Harris, in Woman's 
Home Companion, December, 1903, p. 15. But to the 
contrary see: Lamon, 275-77; Herndon, i, 257; Nicolay 
and Hay, i, 242-43; Morse, i, 72. 

64. Baker resigned from Congress to engage in the Mexican 
War, a few months before the end of his term. The short 
period that remained was of no interest to the leading 
Whigs, so a local politician named John Henry secured the 
office for the unexpired time. 



36o NOTES 

65. Lincoln to Hardin, January 19, 1845, Works, i, 271-74. 
This letter is also printed in the Lapsley Edition of the 
Works, ii, 5-8, as of 1845. But the date evidently should 
be 1846. See also Lincoln to B. F. James, January 16, 
1846, Works, i, 285-86. 

66. Woman's Home Companion, December, 1903, p. 15; 
Browne, 222. 

67. Lamon, 277-78; Nicolay and Hay, i, 248-49. 

68. Browne's Lincoln and Men, i, 300. 

69. Lincoln to Speed, October 22, 1846, in Works, i, 298 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Alcibiades, concerned in incident 
parallel to Armstrong case, 344. 

Armstrong, Hannah, befriended 
Lincoln in his childhood, 109; her 
alleged letter from Lincoln, 344. 

Armstrong, Jack, one of " Clary's 
Grove boys," 109. 

Armstrong, William (" Duff "). his 
murder case, 108; 344. 

Atlantic Railroad Co., represented 
by Lincoln in suit, 144-145. 

Baddeley, John W., refuses to re- 
tain Lincoln, 181. 

Baker, Edward D., associated 
with Lincoln in Trailor case, 
137; Lincoln's opponent for 
congressional nomination, 267; 
resigns from congress, 359; Lin- 
coln's son named for, 359. 

Balch, George B., describes 
Thomas Lincoln, 2, 323. 

Beale, Edward F., acquires large 
tracts of land, 330. 

Beardstown, 111., 109. 

Beasley, J. D., 90. 

Bergen, Judge Abram, on the 
Armstrong case, 112-I14; on 
authenticity of almanac, 345. 

Berry, Rev. John M., father of 
William F. Berry, 23. 

Berry, William F., buys share in 
Herndon store, 21; partner of 
Lincoln, 22; idleness, intemper- 
ance, and death of, 23, 

Binney, Horace, attitude toward 
Statute of Limitations, 123; at- 
titude when suspects client's 
guilt during trial, 340; compared 
to Lincoln, 342. 



Black Hawk War, Lincoln in, 21 ; 
Lincoln's wrestling match in, 
29-31. 

Blackstone's Commentaries, read 
by Lincoln, 37. 

Blackwell, Henry B., anecdote 
about Lincoln, 143-144. 

Blackwell, Robert S., endorses 
Lincoln's charge against Illi- 
nois Central R.R., 168. 

Bloomington, HI., 82. 

Booker, William F., on character 
of Mordecai and Josiah Lincoln, 

323- 
Boyle, Benjamin, shot by Gen. 

Linder's son, 141, 
Breese, Judge Sidney, on Lin- 
coln's honesty, 86. 
Brewer, Justice David J., anecdote 

on Lincoln and law, 103; 343. 
Brockman, James M., receives 

letter from Lincoln on how to 

study law, 333. 
Brokaw, Abraham, anecdote of 

Lincoln and money, 148. 
Brougham, Henry Peter, Baron, 

on legal fees, 349. 
Browning, Orville H., endorses 

Lincoln's charge against Illinois 

Central R.R., 168. 
Bunn, John W., anecdote on Lin- 
coln's moderate charges, 150; 

on Lincoln and politics, 258. 
Bush, Sally, see Mrs. Johnston. 
Butler, William, tenders Lincoln 

hospitality, 42. 

Calhoun, John, surveyor of Sanga- 
mon County, appoints Lincoln 
Deputy Surveyor, 25, 28, 204. 



3^4 



INDEX 



Carter, Robert Nicholas, turns 
over practice to Patrick Henry, 

71- 

Cartwright, Dr. Peter, Method- 
ist circuit-rider, 105; Lincoln's 
opponent for Congress, 278, 
279. 

Caton, Judge John D., on Lin- 
coln's honesty, 64; on Lincoln 
and law, 103-104. 

Chaddon, L. D., 90. 

Chew, Henry, recipient of gener- 
osity from Lincoln, 184; fails to 
pay bill guaranteed by Lincoln, 

185. 

Chiniquy, Father Charles, sued 
for slander, 155; retains Lin- 
coln, 156; overwhelmed by 
Lincoln's generosity, 158. 

Chiniquy Slander Case, 155-158. 

" Clary's Grove Boys," wreck 
Radford's store, 22. 

Cicero, Marcus Tulhus, eulogy of 
Servius Sulpicius, 336. 

Clay, Henry, Lincoln's admira- 
tion for, 200; political pro- 
gramme, 201. 

Clinton, deWitt, Lincoln's emu- 
lation of, 218. 

Cogdal, Isaac, generously treated 
by Lincoln, 137. 

Conant, Alban J., on Lincoln's 
study of Blackstone's Com- 
mentaries, 331. 

Constable, Charles H., disloyalty 
to his party, 244-245. 

Counterfeit money, in common 
circulation, 15; Lincoln's experi- 
ence with, 15-16; Lincoln se- 
cures acquittal of man charged 
with passing it, 16. 

Crafton, Greek, killed by Quinn 
Harrison, 105. 

Crawford, Josiah, makes Lincoln 
work for damaged book, 1 1 ; 
lampooned by Lincoln, 12. 



CuUom, Shelby M., associated 
with Lincoln in Harrison case, 
106; on Lincoln's methods of 
meeting personal attacks, 344; 
on Lincoln as an advocate, 337. 

Davis, David, on Lincoln's hon- 
esty, 63-64; appoints Lincoln 
to sit as judge for him, 89, 90; 
on Lincoln and the law, 123- 
124; rebukes Lincoln for un- 
dercharging, 161; presides at 
mock-trial, 162; his "Midas 
touch," 172; delegates his judi- 
cial functions to others, 341. 

Davis, J. McCan, on authentic- 
ity of almanac in Armstrong 
case, 345. 

Dawson, John, one of the "Long 
Nine," 211. 

Democratic Party, under Andrew 
Jackson, 198; in power when 
Lincoln enters politics, 199; 
lashed by Lincoln, 241-242. 

Deskins, Dr. John, sheriff sent in 
pursuit of Lincoln, 70. 

Dick, James A., sheriff in " Duff " 
Armstrong case, no. 

Dickson, Judge William M., de- 
scribes Lincoln's humor as ad- 
vocate, 346. 

DisraeU, Benjamin, his similari- 
ties to Lincoln, 240. 

Douglas, Stephen A., dunned by 
Lincoln, 148-149; elected Reg- 
ister of Land Office, 223. 

Douglass, Frederick, tells of first 
money he earned, 347. 

Dowling, Mrs. John, daughter of 
Dennis Hanks, praises Thomas 
Lincoln, 2, 3. 

Dresser, Rev. Charles, officiates 
at Lincoln's wedding, 174. 

DriscoU, Mrs. Katherine Lord, 
anecdote on Lincoln's refusal 
of bad cases, 338. 



INDEX 



J65 



Drummond, Judge Thomas, on 
Lincoln's honesty, 64. 

Duncan, Gov. Joseph, calls spe- 
cial session of assembly, 231. 

Dungee, Jack, sues Spencer for 
slander, 152-155. 

Dungee Slander Suit, Lincoln's 
fee, 154. 

Duperron, Cardinal, and Henry 

HI, 59. 

Edwards, Benjamin S., retained 

by Gov. Matteson, 55. 

Edwards, Ninian W., opposing 
advocate to Lincoln, 159; one of 
the "Long Nine," 211; on Lin- 
coln's appearance, 179, 352. 

Elizabethtown, Ky., home of 
Thomas Lincoln, 4; home of 
Mrs. Johnston, 7. 

ElUs, James, befriended by Lin- 
coln, 24. 

Emerson, Ralph, on Lincoln and 
the law, 116. 

Ewing, William Lee D., Lincoln's 
opponent for speaker of Illinois 
House, 357. 

Ferguson, Benjamin, eulogized by 
Lincoln, 331. 

Fisher, Archibald, wrongly re- 
ported murdered, 138. 

Fletcher, Job, Sr., one of the 
"Long Nine," 211. 

Floyd, George P., part of fee re- 
turned to him by Lincoln, 159- 
160, 349. 

Forquer, George, publicly re- 
proached by Lincoln, 242-244. 

Fox, Charles James, his " political 
slaughter" of opponents, 354. 

Franklin, Benjamin, trials with his 
partner, 328. 

Gentry, Allen, makes trading voy- 
age with Lincoln, 14. 



Gentry, James, sends Lincoln on 
trading voyage to New Orleans, 
14; commends Lincoln, 15. 

Gentryville, home of Lincolns, 
18. 

Gibson, Justice John B., dictum 
on legal fees, 356. 

Gillespie, Judge Joseph, anec- 
dote on Lincoln, 69; on Lin- 
coln's simplicity, 177-178, 352; 
colleague of Lincoln in the 
House, 236-237; letter to Hern- 
don, 340. 

Globe Tavern, first home of Lin- 
coln and his wife, 175. 

Goodrich, Grant, endorses Lin- 
coln's charge against the Illi- 
nois Central R.R., 168; offers 
Lincoln partnership, 192. 

Goodwin, Thomas, describes 
Thomas Lincoln, 323. 

Graham, Mentor, helps Lincoln 
study surveying, 26. 

Green, Squire BowUng, complains 
of Lincoln's interference as 
peacemaker, 34. 

Green, J. Parker, bantered by 
Lincoln in cross-examination, 
16. 

Greene, William G., buys Rad- 
ford's store, 22; sells store to 
Lincoln and Berry, 22, 327; 
Lincoln's debt to, 24; on Lin- 
coln's sportsmanlike conduct, 

31. 330- 

Gridley, Asahel, opposing coun- 
sel in Hoblit vs. Farmer, 70- 
71; exit through church win- 
dow with Lincoln, 237. 

Gulliver, Rev. John P., on Lin- 
coln's search for facts, 339. 

Hale, Sir Matthew, dictum on re- 
ceiving fees, 144. 

Hamlin, Hannibal, his struggle 
with debt similar to Lincoln's, 



366 



INDEX 



328; attitude to fees similar to 
Lincoln's, 335. 

Hammond, Judge Abram, hood- 
winked by Lincoln, 263-265. 

Hanks, Dennis, father of Mrs. 
Dowling, 3; on Thomas Lin- 
coln's frequent removals, 4; on 
Lincoln's habit of asking ques- 
tions, 60; on Thomas Lincoln's 
"way with women," 325; on 
Lincoln's business ability, 328. 

Hanks Family, considered 
"smart," 3. 

Hanks, John, Lincoln's cousin, 
accompanies him on trading 
voyage, 17. 

Hanks, Nancy, mother of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, sweetness and 
firmness of character, 3; Abra- 
ham's earliest recollections of, 
6, 7; hardships and death, 7, 
324; influence on Abraham's 
character, 7. 

Hardin, Gen. John J., Lincoln's 
opponent for congressional 
nomination, 267, 273; "making 
a slate," 274; turns against 
Lincoln, 276; fails to catch Lin- 
coln in his trap, 360. 

Harding, Jacob, refuses Lincoln 
space in his editorial columns, 

254- 

Harriott, James, presiding justice 
in Armstrong case, 109. 

Harris, Gibson W., clerk in Lin- 
coln's office, on Lincoln's atti- 
tude toward clients, 50; on Lin- 
coln as a politician, 252, 277, 
278, 357; on Lincoln as a law- 
yer, 343; on Lincoln's attitude 
toward fees, 349; on Lincoln's 
generosity, 185, 353. 

Harrison, Quinn, "Peachy," mur- 
der case of, 105-106. 

Hawley, Isaac, astonished by 
small fee Lincoln asks, 149. 



Henry HI, and Cardinal Duper- 
ron, 59. 

Henry, Dr. A. G., on Lincoln's 
treatment of Post Office funds, 
45-46. 

Henry, John, secures Baker's of- 
fice, 359. 

Henry, Patrick, compared to Lin- 
coln, 71; evidence that he kept 
accounts, 335; uses Valley 
Forge hardships as appeal for 
sympathy, 346. 

Hemdon, Archer G., one of the 
"Long Nine," 211. 

Herndon, James, sells interest in 
general store to Berry, 21. 

Herndon, Rowan, sells interest in 
general store to Lincoln, 21 ; be- 
lieves Lincoln honest, 21, 327; 
Lincoln's debt to, 24. 

Herndon, William H., Lincoln's 
partner, 335; anecdotes on Lin- 
coln and law, 87-88, 124-126; 
associate counsel with Lincoln, 
105; anecdote on Lincoln and 
money, 145, 166; expostulates 
with Lincoln on under-charges, 
162; on Lincoln's indebtedness, 

329- 

Hicks, Ratcliffe, on Lincoln and 
the Patterson case, 339. 

Hill, Samuel, befriended by Lin- 
coln, 24. 

Hinton, Col. Richard J., on Lin- 
coln as lawyer, 95-96, 342. 

Hoblit, Hon. James T., on Lin- 
coln and the law, 82-83. 

Hoblit vs. Fanner, Lincoln's 
handling of case, 70. 

Hoffman, David, dictum on stat- 
ute of limitations and infancy, 
346; attitude toward fees, 351; 
refuses to take bad cases, 

337- 
Holt,Chief Justice William Henry, 
on fictitious pleas, 342. 



INDEX 



367 



niinois Central Railroad, retains 
Lincoln, 166; disallows his 
claim for fees, 167; sued by Lin- 
coln, 169; its recent statement 
of case, 1 70-171. 

Indiana Statutes, read by Lin- 
coln, 35.331- 

Irwin, James S., receives letter 
from Lincoln regarding fees, 165. 

Jackson, Andrew, his radical dem- 
ocratic doctrines, 198. 

Jacksonism, its decline in popu- 
larity, 208. 

Jacksonville, 111., 52. 

James, Benjamin F., 360. 

Jayne, Dr. William, on Lincoln's 
generosity, 184, 353. 

Johnson, Matilda, wife of Dennis 
Hanks, 3. 

Johnston, Daniel, first husband 
of Sally Bush, 7. 

Johnston, John D., Lincoln's step- 
brother, accompanies him on 
trading voyage, 17. 

Johnston, Mrs. Sarah Bush, mar- 
ries Thomas Lincoln, 7; charac- 
ter and influence on Abraham, 
8-9. 

Jones, William, his grocery store 
at New Salem, 18. 

Joy, James F., retains Lincoln for 
Illinois Central R.R., 166; dis- 
allows Lincoln's claim, 167; 
asks Lincoln to act as arbitra- 
tor, 331. 

Judd, Norman B., attorney for 
Chicago and Rock Island R.R. 
Co., retains Lincoln, 97-98; en- 
dorses Lincoln's charge against 
the Illinois Central R.R., 168. 

Judd, Mrs. Norman B., on Lin- 
coln as a lawyer, 343. 

Kentucky, 3. 

Kidd, Captain Thomas W. S., 



describes Lincoln's anger in 
court, 347. 

Kingsbury, Enoch, his case re- 
fused by Lincoln, 54-55. 

Knob-Creek, Ky., early home of 
Lincoln, 4. 

Knox, Joseph, associate of Lin- 
coln in Rock Island Bridge 
case, 97. 

Koemer, Justice Gustav, on 
Lincoln's fairness, 95; recom- 
mends Lincoln to Atlantic R.R. 
Co., 145. 

Lamon, Ward Hill, forced by Lin- 
coln to return fee, 159-160; on 
Lincoln and the Patterson case, 

339- 

"Land-sharks," Lincoln's aver- 
sion to, 135. 

Law, relation of lawyer to client, 
58-60, 71-75; sham pleas, 88, 
342; technicalities, 117-119; 
statute of Hmitations, 122-123, 
346; legal fees, 136-138, 144, 
166, 335, 349, 350. 

Lincoln, Abraham, genealogy, i; 
born at Nolin Creek, Ky., 4; 
early poverty, 4; on his father's 
lack of "money sense," 5; in- 
fluenced by father's honesty, 6; 
earliest recollections of mother, 
6, 7; "my angel mother," 7, 9; 
influenced by stepmother, 9; 
frontier life and hardships, 10; 
lack of schooling, 10; ambition 
for learning, 10; borrows books, 
11; damages Crawford's book, 
10; writes lampoons, 12; emu- 
lates Weems's Washington, 13, 
326; sent on trading voyage to 
New Orleans by Gentry, 14; 
experience with counterfeit 
money, 15, 16, 327; commended 
by Gentry, 15; cross-examina- 
tion of J. Parker Green, 16; 



368 



INDEX 



second trading voyage, 17; ad- 
mired by Denton Offutt, 17, 18; 
hired as clerk by Offutt at New 
Salem, 18, 197; lack of mercan- 
tile ability, 18, 23, 131, 133; his 
honesty attracts attention, 20; 
in Black Hawk War, 21; fails 
for election to state legislature, 
21, 202; buys Rowan Herndon's 
share of general store, 21 ; stat- 
ure, 21; buys Radford's store 
from Greene, 22; buys business 
of Rutledge, 22 ; sells out to the 
Trents, 22 ; charitable to mem- 
ory of Berry, 22; burden of 
debts, 24, 225; his debts com- 
pared to Hamlin's, 328; ap- 
pointed local postmaster, 24, 
204, 355; meager living, 24; sen- 
sitiveness to honor, 25; deputy 
surveyor, 26,133, 204, 206; sued 
by Van Vergen and Watkins, 
26; "the national debt," 27, 38, 
42, 133, 223; feats of strength, 
29; wrestling match, 29-31; 
sportsmanlike conduct, 31 ; bor- 
rows books from Justice Pitcher, 
35; attends sessions at Boon- 
ville, 35; desire to study law, 
35-36, 38; reads Blackstone's 
commentaries, 37; elected to 
state legislature, 37; poverty, 
38; uses Major Stuart's library, 
39; enters law, 40; journey to 
Springfield, 41-42; accepts 
Speed's hospitality, 43; partner 
of Stuart, 44; treatment of the 
money of others, 45-47; atti- 
tude toward clients, 49-50, 66- 
70, 73-76; the Matheney case, 
50; attitude toward fraudulent 
cases, 54-60; partnership with 
Logan, 55; refuses to take Mat- 
teson case, 56, 338; "law hon- 
esty," 56-57; conscience in law, 
56-59, 77-78; habit of asking 



questions, 60, 61; intellectual 
modesty, 61-63; admiration 
for Stanton, 62; logical reason- 
ing powers, 63; freedom from 
guile, 65; attitude when sus- 
pects client's guilt during trial, 
66-70, 340; Patterson murder 
trial, 67, 339; Hoblit vs. Farm- 
er, 70-71 ; skill as an advocate, 
79-80, 97-100, 341, 342; his 
methods in court, 80-83, ioi» 
125; treatment of witnesses, 
84-86; experience with sham 
pleas, 88; sits forjudge Davis, 
89, 90; qualifications as judge, 
92-93; Rock Island Bridge 
case, 96-98; his colleagues' 
jealousy, 104; the Quinn Har- 
rison murder case, 105-107; 
methods of meeting personal at- 
tacks, 107-108; "Duflf Arm- 
strong case," 108-111,344,355; 
false reflections on his charac- 
ter, 108, 111-115, 215, 345; the 
almanac episode, i lo-i 1 1 ; atti- 
tude toward slurs on his char- 
acter, 1 14-1 15; attitude toward 
technicalities in law, 117-118; 
his wit, 1 19; dishonest litigants, 
120-122; statute of limitations, 
122-123, 346; love of justice, 
127; attitude toward money, 
130-135, 173; earns his first 
money, 132, 347; aversion to 
land-grabbers, 133-135; fee in 
Armstrong case, 136; the 
Trailor case, 137-138; gener- 
osity to Trailor brothers, 139; 
the "shirt sleeve court," 140; 
generosity to Linder, 141-142, 
348; represents Atlantic R.R. 
Co. in suit, 144-145; proneness 
to underrate his ser\-ices, 147, 
148; duns Douglas for money, 
148, 149; charges Daniel Web- 
ster absurdly small fee, 151; 



INDEX 



369 



Dungee slander suit, 152-155; 
Chiniquy case, 155; generosity 
to Chiniquy, 158; returns part 
of fee to Floyd, 159-160; forces 
Lamon to return part of fee, 
160; rebuked by Davis for un- 
dercharging, 161; arraigned at 
mock trial, 162; writes to Irwin 
about fees, 169; does not spec- 
ulate, 172; marries Mary Todd, 
173, 267; at the Globe Tavern, 
175; his simplicity, 176, 183, 
352 ; makes unfavorable first im- 
pression, 178, 180, 182; lack of 
taste in dress, 179; his appear- 
ance, 180-182 ; demands on him 
as married man, 183; his gener- 
osity, 183-185, 353; his wife's 
trials, 185-188; treatment of 
his father, 190-191, 353; refuses 
partnership with Goodrich, 192 ; 
indifference to wealth, 193; 
first entrance into politics, 195, 
199; his ambition, 197, 260, 266; 
admires Clay, 200; analysis of 
results of his first campaign, 
203, 355, 356; political sincer- 
ity, 207, 233, 238, 354; elected 
to state legislature, 208; ap- 
pointed to committee on ac- 
counts and expenditures, 209; 
attracts notice as politician, 
210; reelected, 210; leader qf 
the "Long Nine," 211; cam- 
paign to transfer capital from 
Vandalia to Springfield, 212- 
219; "log-rolling," 213-215, 
216,218,239; emulates De Witt 
Clinton, 218; befriended by 
Wilson, 224; borrows money 
from Smoot, 225; takes up fight 
against usury, 227; secures law 
limiting rates of interest, 230; 
handling of financial troubles of 
state, 232-236; his exit through 
church window, 237; his part 



in debate on "Subtreasuries," 
240, 241 ; experience with politi- 
cal graft, 242 ; retort to Forquer, 
242-243; his treatment of office- 
seekers, 245-246; elected Speak- 
er of Illinois House, 247; his 
personality, 247; his qualities as 
a politician, 248-250, 252, 256, 
258 ; his methods of appeal to the 
people, 253, 254; the Harrison 
campaign, 254; his system of 
political organization, 255; his 
aggressiveness, 257; his mod- 
esty, 259, 261; readiness to as- 
sist beginners, 262; campaign 
for Congress, 267; helps Schurz, 
262; his candor, 269; member 
of delegation, 270; letter to 
Morris, 271 ; at the convention, 
272; "making a slate," 274; dis- 
solution of partnership with 
Logan, 275; turned against by 
Hardin, 276; his candidacy for 
Congress, 277, 279; charged 
with impiety, 279, 280; elected 
to Congress, 28 1, 282 ; arbitrator 
of disputes, 28, 32-35, 48-49, 
52-53* 331; his honesty, I, 9, 
18, 20, 28, 32, 45-46, 63-65, 
85-86, 129, 245; attitude toward 
legal fees, 136, 139, 141, 142, 
147, 150, 152, 158-160, 163, 
165, 166, 171, 349, 350, 351; 
attitude toward fees similar to 
Hamlin's, 335; sells "dogskin" 
gloves to Ross, 328; letter to 
Spears, 329; on Surveyor-Gen- 
eral Beale, 330; on his prowess 
as wrestler, 330; eulogizes Fer- 
guson, 331; date of his admis- 
sion to bar, 333, 334; evidence 
that he kept accounts, 335; 
did not win every case he 
should have won, 341; com- 
pared to Horace Binney, 342; 
habit of waiting on himself. 



37° 



INDEX 



351; habit of carrying docu- 
ments under his hat, 205, 355; 
proposes resolution for bill 
against fraudulent voting, 358; 
his proposed duel with Shields, 
268, 359; avoids traps set by 
Hardin, 360. 

anecdotes about Lincoln, 13, 
16, 19, 25, 30-31. 36, 42, 45, 47. 
64, 65, 92-93, 178, 182, 261, 272, 

357. 359- 

anecdotes about Lincoln and 
the law, 49-51, 55, 57, 66-67, 
68-69, 75-76, 77-78, 80-83, 89- 
91, 95, 98, 102, 103, 116, 118- 
119, 120-121, 124-126,127-128, 
338. 

anecdotes about Lincoln and 
money, 131-132, 137-141, i43, 
145-147, 148-151, 154, 158- 
160, 164, 166, 172, 187, 189, 225, 

351- 

anecdotes about Lincoln and 
politics, 206,214,219-221, 222- 
223, 226, 237, 242-244, 246, 
254, 258, 269-270. 

anecdotes by Lincoln, 5-6, 

59-60, 131-132, 229. 

Lincoln, Edward Baker, second 

son of Abraham Lincoln, 351; 

named for Edward D. Baker, 

359- 

Lincoln, Josiah, uncle of Abra- 
ham, his probity, 2, 323. 

Lincoln, Matilda, Abraham's 
stepsister, axe anecdote, 13. 

Lincoln, Mordecai, uncle of Abra- 
ham, his probity, 2, 323. 

Lincoln, Robert Todd, oldest son 
of Abraham Lincoln, 351. 

Lincoln, Thomas, father of Abra- 
ham, regarded as honest, 2, 6; 
one source of Abraham's hon- 
esty, 3; frequent removal of res- 
idence, 4, 324; lack of success, 
4; 5, hospitality, 5; lack of 



"money sense," 5; influence on 
Abraham's character, 6; mar- 
ries Mrs. Johnston, 7, 324. 

Lincoln, Thomas, fourth son of 
Abraham Lincoln, 351. 

Lincoln, William Wallace, third 
son of Abraham Lincoln, 351. 

Lincoln, 111., 82. 

Linder, Gen. Usher F., experi- 
ences Lincoln's generosity, 141- 
142; on Lincoln's family, 323; 
letter from Lincoln, 348. 

Little, S., collects money on bill 
guaranteed by Lincoln, 184. 

Littlefield, Gen. John H., on 
Lincoln's refusal to take bad 
cases, 57, 338. 

Little Pigeon Creek, home of 
Lincolns, 7. 

Logan, Milton, foreman of jury in 
Armstrong case, testifies to au- 
thenticity of almanac, 114. 

Logan, Judge Stephen T., Lin- 
coln's partner, 55, 105, 335; in 
Trailor case, 137; dissolution 
of partnership with Lincoln, 
275; on Lincoln's popularity, 
203, 355- 

"Log-rolling," Lincoln's experi- 
ence with, 213, 215-216, 218. 

"Long Nine, The," nickname of 
Sangamon representatives, 211; 
campaign to transfer state 
capital to Springfield, 212-215; 
"Log-Rolling," 215, 216. 

Loop, James L., associated with 
Lincoln, 340. 

Lord, James J., anecdote on Lin- 
coln's refusal of bad cases, 57, 
338. 

Lord, John P., describes Jeremiah 
Mason, 336. 

McClemand, John A., recom- 
mended by Lincoln, 53; in 
Harrison case, 105; secures pas- 



INDEX 



371 



sage of bill against fraudulent 
voting, 358. 

McCormick, Andrew, one of the 
"Long Nine," 211. 

McConnick Reaper Suit, Stan- 
ton's handling of the case, 62. 

McHenry, Henry, experience with 
Lincoln as lawyer, 54; on Lin- 
coln as surveyor, 330; on Lin- 
coln's close application, 332. 

McLean, John, presiding judge in 
Rock Island Bridge case, 96. 

McNeely, William, one of 
"Clary's Grove boys," 139; on 
Lincoln's attitude toward right 
and wrong, 327. 

McWilliams, Amzi, prosecuting 
attorney in Harrison case, 105. 

Marshall, Chief Justice John, re- 
semblances to Lincoln, 352. 

Mason, Jeremiah, tries to pre- 
vent litigation, 336. 

Matheney, Charles, Lincoln and 
the Matheney case, 50. 

Matheney, James, experiences 
Lincoln's candor, 359. 

Matteson, Governor Joel A., 
Lincoln and Logan refuse to 
defend, 55-56, 338. 

Mendonsa, John F., anecdote 
about Lincoln and money, 185- 

187, 353- 

Minier George W., describes 
Lincoln's refusal to plead ex- 
emption on grounds of infancy, 
346. 

Moore, CUfton H., opposing 
counsel to Lincoln in Dungee 
case, 153. 

Moore, Jonathan, brother of Cap- 
tain William Moore, 31. 

Moore, Risdon M., meets Lin- 
coln, 330. 

Moore, William, commander of 
company from St. Clair County 
in Black Hawk War, 30. 



Morris, Martin M., supporter of 
Lincoln in convention, 271, 
273, 274. 

Nance, George W., on Lincoln's 
charge for services, 150, 349. 

"National Debt," Lincoln's bur- 
den of debt, 27, 38, 42, 133, 223. 

Neale, Thomas M., successor of 
John Calhoun, 28. 

Nelson, Thomas H., anecdote 
about Lincoln, 263; hood- 
winked by Lincoln, 264-265; 
sequel to his adventure with 
Lincoln, 358. 

New Orleans, La., 5, 6; trading 
voyage to, 14. 

New Salem, 327, 332, 355; Lin- 
coln clerk in OfTutt's store at, 18. 

Nolin Creek, Ky., birthplace of 
Abraham Lincoln, 4. 

Norris, James A., convicted of 
manslaughter, 108. 

O 'Conor, Charles, subordinates 
money-making to professional 
propriety, 350. 

Offutt, Denton, admiration for 
Lincoln, 17, 18; sends Lincoln 
on trading voyage, 17; hires 
Lincoln as clerk at New Salem, 
18; business fails to prosper, 
20-21. 

Orr, Albert B., tells of Lincoln's 
decision to enter law, 332. 

Osgood, Uri, attorney for Chini- 

quy, 155- 

Paddock, John W., attorney for 
Chiniquy, 155. 

Palmer, John M., in Harrison 
case, 105. 

Parks, Judge Samuel C, on Lin- 
coln's attitude toward law, 55; 
on Lincoln as a politician, 238. 

Patterson murder trial, 67, 339. 



372 



INDEX 



Pickering, Governor William, on 
Lincoln's mother and step- 
mother, 9. 

Pinkney, William, conduct simi- 
lar to Lincoln's, 77-78. 

Pirtle, Henry on the character 
of Lincoln's uncles, 323. 

Pitcher, Justice John, lends Lin- 
coln law books, 35; admiration 
for Lincoln, 36. 

Primm, James, experiences Lin- 
coln's generosity, 353. 

Prince, Ezra Morton, on Lincoln 
as a lawyer, 104. 

Purple, Norman H., endorses Lin- 
coln's charge against Illinois 
Central R.R., 168. 

Radford, Reuben, store wrecked 
by "Clary's Grove boys," 22; 
sells store to Greene, 22; Lin- 
coln's debt to, 24. 

Rankin, Henry B., describes route 
Lincoln took from Springfield 
to New Salem, 332. 

RepubUcan Party, Lincoln fails 
for election to state Legisla- 
ture in, 21. 

Reynolds, Gov. John, on Lincoln 
as a politician, 247. 

Rice, Judge E. J., prejudiced at 
Harrison trial, 127. 

Rice, Henry, experience with 
Lincoln as a lawyer, 52; on 
Lincoln's handling of bank- 
ruptcy case, 337. 

Rickel, Henry, on Lincoln and 
money, 1 51-152, 349- 

Rock Island Bridge Case, Lin- 
coln's efforts in, 96-98. 

Rockport, Ind., home of Justice 
John Pitcher, 35. 

Roper, Joseph D., anecdote about 
Lincoln, 357. 

Rosette, John E., receives letter 
from Lincoln, 188, 



Ross, Harvey L., consults Lin- 
coln in land case, 139; buys 
"dogskin" gloves of Lincoln, 
328. 

Ross, Ossian M., postmaster at 
Havana, 111., 139. 

Ruggles, James M., anecdote 
about Lincoln, 272, 359. 

Rutledge, James, sells business 
to Lincoln and Berry, 22; Lin- 
coln's debt to, 24. 

Sadorus, 111., 75. 

SchuTZ, Carl, on Lincoln's appear- 
ance, 180; first interview with 
Lincoln, 262. 

Shaw, J. Henry, anecdote on 
Lincoln and law, 68. 

Shields, James, his proposed 
duel with Lincoln, 268, 359. 

"Shirt sleeve court," held by 
Judge Thomas, 140-141. 

Short, James, takes place of Van 
Bergen as Lincoln's creditor, 

329- 

Simmons, Pollard, tenders Lin- 
coln appointment as deputy 
surveyor, 206-207. 

Smoot, Coleman, lends Lincoln 
money, 225, 356. 

Somers, James W., on Lincoln's 
appearance, 179. 

Spears, George, reprimanded by 
Lincoln for demanding receipt, 

329- 

Speed, Joshua F., shares his room 
with Lincoln, 43; on Lincoln's 
attitude toward his election to 
Congress, 360. 

Spencer, Joe, sued by Dungee 
for slander, 152-155. 

Spink, Peter, sues Father Chini- 
quy for slander, 155. 

Springfield, 111., 37, 39, 41-42; 
Lincoln's home, 42; made capi- 
tal, 219; Lincoln's route from 



INDEX 



373 



Springfield to New Salem, 
332. 

Stanton, Edward M., Lincoln's 
admiration for, 62; his handling 
of the McCormick Reaper suit, 
62. 

Starr, Norton, and McRoberts, 
attorneys for Spink in Chiniquy 
case, 155. 

Stature, Lincoln's stalwartness, 
21. 

Statute of Limitations, Lincoln's 
attitude toward, 122-123. 

Stephens, Alexander H., refuses 
to take bad cases, 338. 

Stevens, Frank E., investigates 
the "Black Hawk" wrestling 
match, 29, 330. 

Stone, Daniel, one of the "Long 
Nine," 211. 

Stuart, Maj. John T., attorney at 
Springfield, 37; fellow-candi- 
date of Lincoln, 37; helps Lin- 
coln study law, 39; partner of 
Lincoln, 44, 181, 335. 

Sulpicius, Servius, believes in tem- 
pering the severity of law, 336. 

Swett, Leonard, on Lincoln as ar- 
bitrator, 49; on Lincoln's hon- 
esty, 64-65; on Lincoln and the 
law, 80-81, 98; on Lincoln's 
simplicity, 352. 

Thomas, Judge Jesse B., holds 
"shirt sleeve court," 140-141. 

Thompson, Lorenzo Dow, beats 
Lincoln at wrestling, 30. 

Thornton, Anthony, on Lincoln 
as an advocate, 341. 

Todd, Mary, Lincoln's wife, 174, 
267; her trials with money- 
matters, 185, 188. 

Toombs, Robert, refuses to take 
bad cases, 338. 

Trailor brothers, defended on 
murder charge by Lincoln, 138. 



Treat, Judge Samuel H., presides 
in Hoblit vs. Farmer case, 70; 
121; on Lincoln's straightfor- 
wardness as an advocate, 340. 

Tremont, 111., 120. 

Trent, Alexander and Williamj 
buy out Lincoln and Berry on 
notes and abscond, 23. 

Turnham, David, lends copy of 
Indiana Statutes to Lincoln, 
331. 

Usury, prevalence, 227; Lincoln 
takes up fight against, 228; 
law limiting rates of interest, 
230. 

Van Bergen, obtains judgment 
against Lincoln on note, 26. 

Van Cleave, James R. B., de- 
scribes route Lincoln took from 
Springfield to New Salem, 332. 

Vandalia, 111., 42; state capital 
transferred to Springfield, 219. 

Volk, Leonard W., describes Lin- 
coln's habit of waiting on him- 
self, 351. 

Warburton, George, one of par- 
ties in horse-race, 32. 

Warden, Charles E., tells of Lin- 
coln's decision to enter law, 
332. 

Washington, George, punctilious 
honesty compared to Lincoln's, 
19; Weems's Life of, 12. 

Watkins, Thomas, sues Lincoln 
for debt, 26. 

Webster, Daniel, impressed with 
Lincoln's moderation in fees, 
150-151; resemblances to Lin- 
coln, 224; attitude toward 
money, 225; secures acquittal 
of forger by his admissions, 343; 

Weems, Mason L., author of 
"Life of Washington," 326. 



374 



INDEX 



Weems's " Life of Washington/' 
influence on Lincoln, 12, 326. 

Weik, Jesse W., on date of Lin- 
coin's admission to the bar, 333; 
anecdote on Lincoln and money, 

351- 

Weldon, Lawrence, opposing 
counsel to Lincoln in Dungee 
case, 153; on Lincoln's moder- 
ate fees, 154-155; on Lincoln's 
methods of meeting personal 
attacks, 344. 

Whig Party, Lincoln elected to 
State Legislature on, 37 ; Henry 
Clay its hero, 201. 

White, Horace, on Lincoln as a 
politician, 256; on counterfeit 
money, 326. 



Whitney, Henry C, on Lincoln's 
honesty, 65, 86, 87; on Lincoln 
and the law, 75-76; on Lincoln 
and money, 164; contradicts 
Lamon on Patterson case, 339; 
on Lincoln's simplicity, 352. 

Williams, Archibald, endorses 
Lincoln's charge against the II- 
Hnois Central R.R., 168. 

Wilson, Robert L., one of the 
"Long Nine," 2ii; befriends 
Lincoln, 224. 

Winters, WilUam H., on ©'Con- 
or's professional propriety, 
350. 

"Wyihe, George, method of guard- 
ing against deception of clients, 
65-66. 



31+77-1 



